Case  ...... 

Shelf  // 


INDEPENDENT  ORDER  ODD-FELLOWS, 

BALTIMORE,    1VID. 

EXTRACT  FROM  THE  RULES. 

RULE  5.  A  brother  has  the  privilege  of  taking  out 
of  the  Library  two  volumes  at  one  time.  He  may. 
however,  take  out  a  third  volume  by  paying  the  re  for, 
in  advance,  the  sum  of  five  cents  per  week,  subject 
to  the  fines  and  penalties  prescribed  for  the  other 
volumes. 

RULE  6.  Brothers  shall  not  detain  a  book  longer 
than  two  weeks,  though  they  can  have  the  privilege 
of  once  renewing  any  work  (except  in  case  of  new 
books)  for  one  week,  provided  no  brother  has  notified 
the  Librarian  that  he  wants  it.  If  such  notice  be 
left  with  the  Librarian,  the  brother  who  is  in  posses- 
sion of  the  work  must  return  it  within  the  space  of 
one  week  after  the  renewal  ;  and  should  the  same 
book  be  called  for  by  more-  than  one  person,  they 
shall  be  served  in  rotation,  as  their  names  are  re- 
corded. No  brother  returning  a  book  to  the  Library, 
after  a  renewal,  can  take  out  the  same  until  one  week 
has  expired,  unless  by  permission  of  the  Board  of 
Directors. 

RULE  8.  Should  a  brother  keep  out  a  volume  longer  ' 
than  two  weeks,  or  should  he  refuse  or  neglect  to 
return  it  at  the  prescribed  time,  he  shall  pay  a  fine 
of  two  cents  for  each  and  every  day  thereafter,  and 
be  deprived  of  the  use  of  the  Library  until  said  fine 
be  paid  or  remitted  by  the  Board  of  Directors. 


\ 
Y\ 


AN   INTRODUCTION 


TO    THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF 


HERBER"    SPENCER 


WITH 
A  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 


BY 

WILLIAM   HENRY   HUDSON 

ASSOCIATE    PROFESSOR    OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE    IN    THE 
LELAND    STANFORD  JUNIOR    UNIVERSITY 


D. 


COPYRIGHT,  1894, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED 
AT  THE  APPLETON  PRESS,  U.  S.  A. 


SRLF 
UBL 


1657 


TO 

MY  WIFE. 


STACK 

AMNU 


PREFACE. 


THE  writing  of  this  little  book,  which  is  largely  an 
outgrowth  of  lectures  delivered  from  time  to  time  on 
various  aspects  of  the  subject  with  which  it  deals,  has 
been  undertaken  to  meet  what  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very 
healthy  popular  demand.  During  a  three  years'  resi- 
dence in  the  United  States,  partly  in  the  East,  partly  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  how 
widespread  is  the  interest  in  the  subject  of  evolution. 
Expository  lectures  on  the  evolutionary  philosophy,  as 
my  experience  has  proved  to  me,  attract  attentive  and 
appreciative  audiences ;  explanatory  and  illustrative  arti- 
cles appeal  to  an  eager  public ;  and  everywhere  in  the 
more  cultivated  ranks,  and  among  the  younger  men  and 
women  especially,  there  is  manifested  a  strong  desire  to 
learn  something  of  the  bearing  of  the  new  thought  upon 
the  practical  problems  and  living  issues  of  the  day. 

A  special  development  of  this  wholesome  spirit  of 
inquiry  is  to  be  found  in  the  interest  that  is  so  widely 
shown  in  the  personality  and  writings  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer. To  him,  as  the  philosopher  of  evolution — as  the 


vi  PREFACE. 

systematic  exponent  of  the  new  thought  in  its  wider  re- 
lations— attention  is  turned  from  almost  every  side ;  and 
countless  readers,  whose  own  studies  have  taken  them 
but  small  way  below  the  surface  of  the  questions  to  the 
consideration  of  which  he  has  devoted  the  energies  of 
his  life,  are  none  the  less  imbibing  from  the  very  at- 
mosphere around  them  a  vague  but  strong  impression 
that  his  teachings  and  speculations  have  been,  of  all 
men's,  the  most  influential  in  directing  the  intellec- 
tual movements  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Hence  the 
desire,  often  of  late  expressed  to  me  by  thoughtful  and 
inquiring  persons  of  broad  outlook  but  limited  leisure, 
to  know  more  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  his  work,  of  the  rela- 
tive and  historic  relations  of  his  philosophy,  and  espe- 
cially of  its  significance  in  connection  with  those  ques- 
tions with  which  we  are  all  of  us  directly  concerned — the 
questions  of  conduct,  society,  and  religion. 

But  here  arises  a  difficulty.  Mr.  Spencer's  writings 
are  and  must  be  repellent  to  many  would-be  readers  on 
account  of  their  vast  range  and  encyclopedic  character. 
The  comparatively  unpractised  and  totally  unguided 
student,  set  face  to  face  with  a  whole  shelf  full  of  ponder- 
ous volumes,  covering  with  great  minuteness  of  detail  an 
immense  area  of  speculation  and  research,  and  couched 
in  a  singularly  condensed  and  not  very  attractive  style, 
is  apt  to  pause  before  committing  himself  to  a  long  and 
perilous  journey  over  untried  country — a  journey  proba- 
bly fraught  with  unforeseen  dangers,  and  for  which  he 
may  well  feel  himself  imperfectly  prepared.  Did  he  but 


PREFACE.  vii 

possess  some  outline-map,  however  scanty,  of  the  region 
to  be  traversed ;  did  he  but  know  something,  to  begin 
with,  of  the  principal  natural  features  likely  to  be 
encountered  on  the  way,  the  whole  undertaking  would 
appear  to  him  in  a  far  more  favourable  light.  He  would 
then  at  least  realize  to  some  extent  the  direction  he  was 
to  take,  and  feel  the  better  equipped  to  grapple  with 
whatever  adventures  might  await  him  in  his  long  and 
arduous  course. 

In  the  hope  of  furnishing  some  such  outline-map  or 
hand-guide  the  following  pages  are  written.  My  object 
is,  therefore,  a  very  unambitious  one.  I  do  not  propose 
to  trace  over  the  arguments  or  summarize  the  conclu- 
sions of  the  Spencerian  philosophy.  Still  less  do  I  feel 
called  upon  to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  its  more  de- 
batable aspects.  Nor,  beyond  all  things,  is  it  my  inten- 
tion to  offer  a  substitute  for  the  Synthetic  System  itself. 
Those  who  would  really  understand  Mr.  Spencer's  ideas 
must  themselves  go  to  his  writings ;  no  short  cut  can  be 
pointed  out  that  can  be  other  than  unsatisfactory ;  no 
patent  method  can  be  devised  that  will  relieve  the  stu- 
dent of  the  need  for  a  first-hand  study  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
own  arguments,  or  even  render  such  first-hand  study  a 
very  light  and  easy  task.  But  experience  on  the  plat- 
form and  in  private  conversations  has  shown  me  that 
something  may  be  done  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  un- 
trained  and  unwary  feet.  The  sympathetic  inquirer 
may  be  put  into  direct  contact  with  the  vital  germ,  or 
essential  principle,  of  Mr.  Spencer's  thought ;  he  may  be 


viii  PREFACE. 

led  to  realize  how  that  thought  took  shape ;  he  may  be 
introduced  to  its  genetic  history ;  he  may  be  placed  in 
the  position  to  understand  its  relation  to  modern  tend- 
encies in  science  and  philosophy,  and  to  appreciate  the 
direction  of  its  influence  upon  the  practical  problems  of 
the  every-day  world.  Guidance  may  thus  be  furnished 
of  a  helpful  character,  and  the  approach  to  the  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy  made  much  less  thorny  and  toilsome 
than  it  would  otherwise  be. 

If  the  present  introduction  succeeds  to  any  extent  in 
this  humble  labour  of  usefulness — if  it  serves  to  bring 
others  under  the  more  immediate  influence  of  a  teacher 
to  whom  my  own  personal  debt  is  so  great — its  existence 
will  be  amply  justified. 

To  avoid  any  chance  of  misapprehension,  it  should 
perhaps  be  stated  categorically  that  for  the  interpreta- 
tions given  in  the  following  pages  I  alone  am  responsi- 
ble— in  other  words,  the  teacher  is  nowhere  to  be  taken 
to  task  for  the  possible  misconceptions  and  aberrations 
of  the  expositor.  I  have  done  my  best  to  understand 
Mr.  Spencer's  actual  thought  and  its  implications ;  but 
in  such  a  work  as  this  it  is  difficult  to  make  due  allow- 
ance for  the  personal  equation,  and  I  may  occasionally 
have  taken  a  doctrine  or  an  argument  to  mean  some- 
thing more  or  less  than  it  would  mean  to  Mr.  Spencer 
himself — may  occasionally  have  coloured  the  discussion 
by  a  suggestion  or  inference  which  he  would  decline  to 
endorse.  Mr.  Spencer  did  indeed  express  satisfaction 
with  the  article  on  which  the  second  chapter  is  based ; 


PREFACE.  ix 

but  though  this  fact  encourages  me  to  hope  that  my 
interpretations  have  in  general  been  successful,  I  think 
it  nevertheless  important  that  the  warning  of  this  para- 
graph should  be  given. 

It  remains  but  to  add  that  the  substance  of  the  first 
chapter  has  already  appeared,  in  a  much  condensed 
form,  in  The  Arena ;  and  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  B.  0. 
Flower  for  the  readiness  and  courtesy  with  which  he 
granted  me  permission  to  reproduce  it  here.  The  second 
chapter  is  also  a  practical  reprint  of  an  article  in  The 
Popular  Science  Monthly  for  May,  1892.  The  remain- 
ing chapters  are  now  for  the  first  time  put  into  print. 

W.  H.  H. 

LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY,  April,  1894. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.— HERBERT  SPENCER:  A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  1 
IT. — SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK — PREPARATION  FOE 

THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY   ....  35 
III. — THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY       ....  63 
IV. — THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY       ....  112 
V. — THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER     .        .        .  143 
VI. — RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SPENCERIAN  PHI- 
LOSOPHY     181 

APPENDIX. — CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  MR.  SPENCER'S  WRIT- 
INGS .                                                               ,  231 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

HERBERT   SPENCER  :    A    BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

THERE  is  no  writer  of  modern  times  who  has  left 
any  profound  impress  upon  the  thought  of  his  genera- 
tion about  whom  personally  so  little  is  known  as  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer.  For  this  fact,  obvious  as  it  is,  the 
reasons  are  not  far  to  seek.  Ill-health,  consequent 
upon  a  serious  nervous  breakdown  about  the  time 
when  his  name  first  began  to  come  at  all  prominently 
before  the  public,  has  for  nearly  forty  years  past  con- 
fined him  to  the  comparative  seclusion  of  a  chosen 
circle  of  immediate  friends ;  while  the  absorbing  nature 
of  the  great  task  to  which  he  has  devoted  the  energies 
of  his  life  has  left  him  but  little  opportunity,  even 
when  strength  permitted  it,  to  seek  the  noisier  high- 
ways of  the  world.  Beyond  all  this,  it  must  be  added 
that  from  first  to  last  Mr.  Spencer  has  shown  himself 
singularly  indifferent  to  the  fascinations  and  allure- 
ments of  fame.  So  far  from  seeking  notoriety,  he  re- 


2      PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

sents,  as  something  akin  to  outrage,  any  attempt  to 
thrust  notoriety  upon  him.  He  began  his  vast  work 
paying  but  scant  heed  to  the  fierce  and  fiery  criticisms 
by  which  it  was  assailed ;  and  now  that,  after  so  many 
years  of  hard  struggle  and  patient  effort,  his  place  as 
a  thinker  is  acknowledged  on  every  hand,  he  concerns 
himself  as  little  with  the  praise  which  is  showered  upon 
him  as  he  formerly  did  with  the  blame.  The  reward 
of  a  thing  well  done  is  to  have  done  it,  says  Emer- 
son; and  it  is  easy  enough  to  understand  that  the 
ability  to  look  back  upon  such  a  magnificent  though 
still  unfinished  life-work  as  his  has  been,  should  prove 
a  greater  reward  to  a  man  like  Spencer  than  all  the 
meretricious  prizes  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  world 
to  bestow. 

Here,  then,  seeing  the  large  place  that  is  every- 
where given  in  criticism  and  discussion  to  Spencer  the 
philosopher,  and  the  little  that  is  anywhere  to  be  found 
written  about  Spencer  the  man,  we  will  preface  our 
study  of  the  various  aspects  of  his  thought  by  a  brief 
outline  of  his  life.  Not  that,  indeed,  the  record  of  that 
life  contains  much  that  is  striking  or  sensational.  It  is 
the  story  of  a  man  working  against  difficulties  almost  in- 
superable towards  the  carrying  out  of  a  great  plan  and 
the  realization  of  a  noble  ambition ;  and  it  yields  little 
of  a  more  eventful  character  than  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  ideas  and  the  slow  progress  of  a  chosen  work 
towards  its  consummation.  Yet,  since  that  work  stands 
to-day,  and  will,  we  believe,  continue  for  many  genera- 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  3 

tions  to  stand,  as  one  of  the  most  Samson-like  efforts  of 
human  genius  and  power,  its  supreme  value  and  import 
may  give  to  commonplace  details  a  significance  that 
they  would  not  otherwise  possess. 

HERBERT  SPENCER  was  born  at  Derby,  England,  on 
the  27th  of  April,  1820.  His  father,  by  profession  a 
teacher,  was  a  man  of  strong  character,  more  than  usual 
breadth  of  culture,  and  very  original  views.  On  all 
questions  connected  with  his  own  walk  in  life  he  was 
far  in  advance  of  his  time,  and  in  many  ways,  I  fear  it 
must  be  added,  a  good  deal  in  advance  of  ours  as  well. 
One  of  his  most  deeply-rooted  convictions  was  that 
little  good  and  much  evil  was  likely  to  result  from  the 
common  methods  of  dealing  with  the  childish  mind — 
methods  which  for  the  most  part  consist  in  the  mere 
burdening  of  the  memory  with  large  numbers  of  un- 
connected facts.  His  view  was,  that  education  should 
aim  not  so  much  at  loading  the  mind  with  information 
which  must  of  necessity  remain  almost  wholly  unab- 
sorbed  and  undigested,  as  at  training  the  faculties  of 
observation  and  reason,  in  such  manner  that  the  intel- 
lect should  learn  not  only  to  acquire,  but  also  to  or- 
ganize knowledge  for  itself.  Hence  he  regarded  it  as  of 
more  importance  to  foster  originality  and  independence 
of  thought,  to  excite  interest,  and  nurture  the  reflective 
powers,  than  to  store  the  memories  of  his  pupils  with 
any  quantity  of  merely  bookish  learning.  His  ambition 
was  to  produce  a  well-balanced  and  self-reliant  human 


4     PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

being,  and  not  a  walking  encyclopaedia  of  more  or  less 
useless  information. 

It  is  needful  to  notice  these  peculiarities  of  the 
father's  methods — peculiarities  which  marked  him  out 
so  strongly  from  the  average  pedagogues  of  his  day — 
because  it  was  under  his  immediate  influence  that  the 
mind  of  the  youthful  Herbert  first  began  to  assert  itself. 
How  much  of  the  son's  own  fearless  freedom  of  thought 
and  judgment  we  have  to  credit  to  the  unusual  ad- 
vantages by  which  he  was  surrounded  during  his  earliest 
and  most  ductile  years  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to 
decide  ;  for  doubtless  many  of  his  own  most  pronounced 
characteristics  are  due  rather  to  inheritance  than  to 
education.  But  that  he  owes  much  to  his  early  envi- 
ronment is  beyond  all  possibility  of  question.  In  his 
own  remarkable  and  widely-read  little  book  on  educa- 
tion the  traces  of  his  father's  influences  are  very  per- 
ceptible. 

The  boy's  health  was  at  first  so  precarious  that  for 
some  time  his  parents  had  but  little  hope  of  rearing 
him ;  but  as  he  grew  into  a  lad  he  yearly  improved  in 
strength  and  vigour.  Probably  it  was  largely  owing  to 
this  early  constitutional  weakness,  and  to  his  father's 
not  unnatural  dread  lest  anything  like  pressure  should 
prove  seriously  and  perhaps  permanently  detrimental, 
that  he  was  (measured  by  the  standard  of  mere  acqui- 
sition) a  very  backward  boy.  He  was  seven  years  old 
before  he  could  read  ;  and  after  that  he  does  not  appear 
to  have  exhibited  much  of  that  inherent  fondness  for 


A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  5 

books  which  so  often  distinguishes  the  embryo  man  of 
letters.  It  is  not  unamusing  to  find  that  the  first 
volume  which  seems  to  have  attracted  his  attention  was 
good,  moral,  prosy  old  Sandford  and  Merton — a  work 
which,  in  some  most  unaccountable  way,  has  succeeded 
in  endearing  itself  to  the  affections  of  large  portions  of 
the  English-speaking  youth. 

When,  by-and-bye,  for  a  variety  of  reasons,  some 
change  in  the  plan  hitherto  followed  appeared  to  be- 
come desirable,  Herbert  was  sent  from  home  and  his 
immediate  training  intrusted  to  other  hands.  In  his 
new  circumstances  he  proved  himself  anything  but  an 
apt  student.  He  was  restless,  inattentive,  and  idle ;  im- 
patient under  restraint,  and  with  a  constitutional  love 
of  having  his  own  way  which  has  never  left  him  from 
that  day  to  this.  Moreover,  he  thus  early  exhibited  a 
marked  repugnance  to  the  ordinary  routine  of  the 
school  curriculum.  To  get  a  lesson  by  heart  was  from 
the  first  almost  intolerable ;  and  he  evinced  a  profound 
dislike  to  accepting  statements  merely  because  they 
happened  to  be  set  down  in  books.  It  is  said  that  he 
rarely  recited  correctly  anything  that  he  had  learned  by 
rote.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  soon  showed  himself 
markedly  superior  to  all  the  other  boys  of  his  age  in 
matters  demanding  observation,  thought,  and  reasoning 
power. 

As  is  usual  in  all  such  cases,  his  real  education  was 
meanwhile  going  on  outside  the  school-house  walls. 
He  had  already  given  evidence  of  a  fondness  for  the 


6  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPEXCER. 

study  of  Nature  and  life  in  all  their  varied  manifesta- 
tions. For  a  good  many  years  one  of  his  favourite  oc- 
cupations was  the  catching  and  preserving  of  insects, 
and  the  rearing  of  moths  and  butterflies  from  egg 
through  larva  and  chrysalis  to  their  most  developed 
forms.  He  also  gave  his  attention  to  botany,  and  began 
the  formation  and  classification  of  an  extensive  herbari- 
um. In  drawing,  too,  he  acquired  considerable  profi- 
ciency, and  I  have  myself  seen  some  of  his  youthful 
productions  in  this  line  which  were  certainly  of  more 
than  average  ability. 

At  home  the  conditions  were  in  many  ways  exceed- 
ingly favourable  for  the  growth  and  expansion  of  his 
highest  faculties,  both  intellectual  and  moral.  Into  the 
house  came  regularly,  week  by  week  and  month  by 
month,  the  more  advanced  of  the  medical,  scientific,  and 
literary  periodicals;  and  into  these  the  boy  was  per- 
mitted to  delve  at  his  will.  More  important  than  his 
varied  and  somewhat  heterogeneous  reading,  however, 
were  the  table  conversations  to  which  he  was  from  the 
first  an  attentive  listener,  and  in  which  he  early  began 
to  bear  his  part.  The  elder  Spencer  and  his  brothers — 
all  men  of  strong  intellect,  wide  culture,  and  pronounced 
views,  and  all  radicals  in  religion  as  well  as  in  politics — 
were  accustomed  during  their  family  gatherings  to  can- 
vass together,  with  a  freedom  and  acuteness  alike  rare,  all 
the  important  issues  of  the  day,  social  and  scientific, 
ethical  and  theological;  and  young  Spencer  was  thus 
habituated  from  his  earliest  boyhood  to  the  treatment, 


A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  7 

as  open  questions,  of  all  matters  connected  with  the 
varied  problems  of  the  church  and  the  world.  At  a 
time  when  most  children  are  being  taught  before  all 
things  to  rely  upon  tradition,  Spencer  was  already  ha- 
bituated to  the  freest  and  keenest  atmosphere  of  discus- 
sion, and  to  the  bold  and  direct  criticism  of  even  the 
most  time-honoured  beliefs.  There  was  thus  naturally 
strengthened  his  already  unmistakable  tendency  towards 
original  investigation,  and  his  correspondingly  pro- 
nounced hatred  of  accepting  any  statement  upon  mere 
authority,  no  matter  how  good  in  itself  that  authority 
might  be. 

During  this  period  his  religious  environment  was  a 
somewhat  curious  one.  Both  his  father  and  his  mother 
had  been  brought  up  Methodists;  but  the  former,  urged 
by  a  growing  dislike  for  much  in  the  Methodist  system 
and  teaching,  had  by-and-bye  forsaken  that  body,  to 
become  a  regular  attendant  at  the  Quakers'  meeting. 
Mrs.  Spencer  meanwhile  remained  unshaken  in  her  old 
faith ;  and  the  consequence  was,  that  the  boy's  Sundays 
were  divided  up  in  a  rather  remarkable  way.  In  the 
morning  he  went  to  the  meeting  with  his  father,  while 
in  the  evening  he  accompanied  his  mother  to  the 
Wesleyan  chapel.  Such  a  weekly  ringing  of  the 
changes  as  this  could  hardly  fail  to  deepen  his  growing 
sense  of  the  worthlessness  of  all  theological  dogmatism 
whatsoever. 

It  would  be  interesting,  did  space  permit,  to  pause 
here  to  consider  the  striking  contrast  presented  by  the 


8  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

early  trainings  of  the  two  most  acute  and  original 
thinkers  in  the  domain  of  pure  philosophy  that  Eng- 
land has  produced  during  the  present  century — I  mean 
the  subject  of  this  sketch  and  the  late  John  Stuart 
Mill.  Mill,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  also  educated 
at  home,  under  his  father's  immediate  supervision ;  was 
also  surrounded  in  childhood  by  men  of  strong  charac- 
ters and  independent  thought ;  and  early  learned  to  dis- 
regard tradition  and  to  turn  the  keen  lens  of  criticism 
and  analysis  upon  the  world's  most  cherished  creeds. 
But  here  the  analogy  practically  ends.  Mill's  mind 
was  forced  as  in  a  hot-house ;  Spencer's  was  allowed  to 
develop  in  the  open  air  and  with  the  least  possible 
pressure  from  without.  Mill,  precocious  in  all  the 
learning  of  the  schools,  read  Greek  and  Latin  at  an 
age  when  Spencer  could  scarcely  spell  his  own  lan- 
guage ;  Mill  was  brought  up  to  regard  the  whole  vast 
system  of  popular  theology  as  a  mere  congeries  of  idle 
and  ridiculous  fables ;  while  Spencer,  as  we  have  seen, 
grew  up  in  sympathetic  contact  with  Christianity  in 
two  of  its  most  diverse  forms ;  and,  finally,  Mill  was 
taught  to  look  upon  all  the  problems  of  social  and 
political  science  as  capable  of  rapid  and  entire  reset- 
tlement, while  Spencer  early  learned  to  consider  every 
possible  question  on  every  possible  subject  as  open  to 
fresh  examination  and  a  totally  new  answer.  A  com- 
parison of  the  childhoods,  early  environments,  and  in- 
tellectual grow-ths  of  these  two  remarkable  men  would 
be  more  than  interesting — it  would  be  of  the  utmost 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  9 

value;  but  it  would  take  us  far  too  much  out  of  our 
present  way  to  enter  upon  it  here.* 

We  pass  on,  therefore,  to  the  next  stage  in  Spencer's 
life.  Mr.  Spencer,  the  elder,  had  a  brother  named 
Thomas,  a  clergyman  of  the-,  established  Church,  but 
withal  a  rather  eccentric  specimen  of  his  order.  A 
radical  at  the  time  when  nearly  the  whole  English 
Church  was  in  bondage  to  the  High  Tory  party ;  a  tee- 
totaler when  the  temperance  movement  was  held  by  the 
general  religious  world  to  be  a  subtle  form  of  atheism  ; 
a  Chartist,  and  the  first  clergyman  of  the  English 
Church  to  take  an  active  and  prominent  part  in  the 
anti-corn-law  movement ;  a  vigorous  and  unwearied  lec- 
turer and  writer  upon  all  matters  touching  the  physical, 
moral,  and  social  welfare  of  the  people  —  the  Eev. 
Thomas  Spencer  was  assuredly  a  man  marked  out  from 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  clergy  of  his  day.  The  present 
writer's  father,  who  knew  him  well  in  the  early  forties, 
has  often  borne  testimony  to  his  great  earnestness  and 
activity ;  qualities  which  indeed  led  him  into  such  ex- 
cesses of  labour  for  the  causes  which  he  loved  so  well 
that,  never  of  robust  constitution,  he  broke  down  pre- 
maturely and  died  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of 
fifty-seven. 

*  Attention  may  nevertheless  be  drawn  to  the  important  fact 
that  Mill's  early  training,  unlike  Spencer's,  was  a  training  exclu- 
sively in  books.  Mill  himself,  in  his  autobiography,  expresses 
regret  that  he  had  never  known  the  discipline  of  any  practical 
scientific  work — a  declaration  of  deep  significance,  coming  from 
such  a  source. 


10     PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

It  was  to  the  care  of  this  uncle  that  Herbert  was 
entrusted  while  in  his  thirteenth  year.  Thomas  Spen- 
cer was  at  that  time  perpetual  curate  of  the  parish  of 
Hinton  Charterhouse,  near  Bath;  and  there  the  boy 
spent  three  quiet  but  not  uneventful  years. 

The  course  of  study  now  pursued  was  somewhat 
more  regular  and  definite  than  had  been  the  case  at 
home ;  and  the  discipline  was  of  a  more  rigorous  char- 
acter. But,  save  for  this,  the  uncle's  methods  and  sys- 
tem did  not  materially  differ  from  those  to  which 
young  Spencer  had  been  accustomed  while  still  under 
his  father's  roof.  Once  again  his  successes  and  his 
failures  in  the  various  studies  which  he  now  took  up 
were  alike  significant.  In  the  classic  languages,  to 
which  a  portion  of  his  time  was  daily  given,  very  little 
progress  was  made.  The  boy  showed  neither  taste  nor 
aptitude  in  this  direction  ;  rules  and  vocabularies 
proved  perpetual  stumbling-blocks  to  him ;  and  what 
little  was  with  infinite  difficulty  committed  to  memory 
was  almost  as  soon  forgotten.  The  study  of  French 
was  productive  of  but  little  better  results,  the  same 
repugnance  to  the  merely  arbitrary  principles  of  lan- 
guage being  just  as  consistently  exhibited.  But  while 
for  studies  of  this  class  there  was  thus  shown  an  inapti- 
tude almost  astounding,  a  counterbalancing  aptitude 
was  exhibited  for  studies  demanding  a  different  kind 
of  ability — constructive  and  co-ordinating  power  rather 
than  a  memory  for  unconnected  details.  In  mathe- 
matics and  mechanics  such  rapid  advancement  was 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  H 

made  that  he  soon  placed  himself  in  these  departments 
ahead  of  fellow-studeuts  much  older  than  himself. 
What  was  noticeable,  too,  was  his  early  habit  of  lay- 
ing hold  of  essential  principles,  and  his  ever-growing 
tendency  towards  independent  analysis  and  exploration. 
This  latter  characteristic  found  vent  in  his  devotion  to 
the  amusement  of  striking  out  new  mathematical  prob- 
lems and  elaborating  original  solutions  for  old  ones. 

It  was  during  this  stay  at  Hinton  that  a  determina- 
tion was  arrived  at  which  in  all  probability  largely  de- 
cided the  after-course  of  his  life.  The  Rev.  Thomas 
Spencer,  himself  a  graduate  of  Cambridge,  where  he 
had  taken  honours  as  ninth  wrangler,  was  desirous  from 
the  first  that  his  nephew  should  be  coached  with  a  view 
to  his  subsequent  admission  to  that  university.  To  this 
Herbert  perseveringly  objected ;  and  for  a  considerable 
time  the  question  furnished  matter  for  dispute  between 
them.  Young  Spencer,  given  to  holding  to  his  opin- 
ions with  unusual  tenacity,  showed  no  signs  of  yielding 
in  this  particular  case  ;  and  in  the  end  his  wishes  car- 
ried the  day,  all  idea  of  an  academic  career  being 
presently  abandoned. 

One  is  tempted  to  pause  here  to  discuss,  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  achievement,  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom  of 
such  a  determination.  Much  might  be  said  for  both 
views  of  the  subject.  That  by  foregoing  a  university 
curriculum  he  sacrificed  something,  more  especially  per- 
haps upon  the  social  side,  must  be  generally  conceded ; 
but  it  may  fairly  be  urged  that  what  he  lost  was,  on  the 


12     PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

whole,  trifling  and  unimportant  in  comparison  with  what 
he  gained.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  the  university  training  that  Spencer  declined 
to  submit  to  was  not  by  any  means  the  training  that 
would  have  awaited  him  to-day  in  any  one  of  the  best  of 
our  American  colleges.  The  Cambridge  of  fifty  years 
ago  was  an  antique,  aristocratic,  exclusive,  and  highly- 
conservative  seat  of  humanistic  learning ;  saturated  by 
the  traditions  of  the  early  renaissance ;  governed  by  an- 
cient methods  and  ideals ;  and  altogether  and  at  every 
point  out  of  touch  with  the  movements  and  aspirations 
of  the  modern  world.*  A  few  years  spent  in  such  a 
place  in  enforced  attention  to  such  studies  as  would 
have  been  prescribed  to  him — studies  which,  as  there 
and  then  followed,  must  have  proved  wholly  deficient 
in  vitalizing  influence,  and  to  which,  for  his  part,  he 
would  have  brought  no  creative  or  informing  enthusi- 
asm— would  have  proved  absolutely  and  entirely  un- 

*  That  the  words  above  written  could,  without  much  exag- 
geration, be  employed  to  describe  the  great  English  universities 
at  the  present  day,  is  made  strikingly  clear  by  the  closing  para- 
graph in  a  volume  entitled  Aspects  of  Modern  Oxford,  published 
while  these  pages  are  passing  through  the  press.  The  writer,  who 
disguises  himself  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  A  mere  Don,"  rue- 
fully contemplates  "those  happy  days  when  the  university  is  to 
be  turned  into  an  industrial  school,  and  a  place  for  the  education 
no  longer  of  the  English  gentleman  but  the  British  citizen."  He 
asks,  "  Will  that  day  ever  come  ? "  and  answers,  "  The  spirit  of 
the  age  is  determined  that  it  shall.  But  perhaps  the  spirit  of 
the  place  may  be  too  much  for  it  yet."  The  struggle,  therefore, 
is  still  going  on  between  mediaeval  methods  and  the  needs  of 
modern  life. 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  13 

fruitful  as  far  as  concerned  the  building  up  of  his  char- 
acter and  the  moulding  of  his  mind — would  have  been, 
from  any  practical  point  of  view,  so  many  years  wasted 
and  frittered  away.  And  the  evil  might  not  have  been 
negative  only :  the  influence  of  those  years  might  in 
many  ways  have  made  it  all  the  harder  for  the  future 
apostle  of  the  newest  gospel  in  philosophy  to  grasp  the 
great  work  to  which  his  life  was  to  be  devoted.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  advantage  to  him  of  the  posses- 
sion in  fuller  degree  of  what  the  academic  world  calls 
culture — and  it  is  unquestionable  that  lack  of  such  pos- 
session has  in  certain  directions  narrowed  his  view — 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  would  have  been  disastrous 
had  he,  on  entering  manhood,  been  hampered,  to  how 
slight  an  extent  soever,  by  hereditary  leading-strings, 
theological  or  pedantic;  and  we  can  hardly  be  too 
thankful,  therefore,  that  Spencer  remained  a  free  lance. 
Thus  much  at  least  must  be  added.  Not  only  has  Mr. 
Spencer  himself  never  seen  reason  to  regret  the  course 
so  early  decided  on,  and  so  consistently  adhered  to,*  but 
even  his  uncle,  the  strongest  advocate  of  the  benefits 


*  Mr.  Spencer's  pronounced  and  undeviating  opposition  to  the 
ordinary  classical  curriculum  is  one  of  the  most  widely-known 
characteristics  of  his  general  work.  Systematically  expressed  in 
his  treatise  on  education,  it  will  be  found  cropping  up  in  unex- 
pected forms  in  almost  all  his  other  writings.  A  good  instance 
of  what  we  may  almost  call  his  pride  in  the  lack  of  those  attain- 
ments by  which  the  world  at  large  sets  so  much  store,  will  be 
found  in  his  trenchant  criticism  of  Matthew  Arnold  and  Addison, 
in  the  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology,  note  to  chapter  ix. 


14  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  a  Cambridge  training,  lived  to  acknowledge,  and 
frankly  did  acknowledge,  that,  upon  the  whole,  that 
course  was  probably  the  right  one. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  however,  the  fact  remains,  to  Cam- 
bridge he  did  not  go;  but  instead  presently  returned 
to  his  father 's  house,  where  he  spent  what  was  to  all 
outward  appearance  an  idle  and  unproductive  year.  A 
good  deal  of  miscellaneous  work  was  gone  through ;  but 
little  was  accomplished  in  the  direction  of  regular  or 
persistent  study.  During  this  time,  however,  his  mind 
was  not  by  any  means  lying  fallow.  The  old  pastime  of 
independent  research  in  the  fields  of  mathematics  and 
mechanics  was  resumed,  one  result  of  which  was  the 
striking  out  of  a  curious  original  theorem  in  descriptive 
geometry,  which  was  afterwards  published,  along  with 
his  own  demonstration,  in  the  Civil  Engineer  and  Ar- 
chitect's Journal.  Then  came  his  first  experiment  in 
practical  work — an  experiment  made  as  assistant  in  a 
school  in  which  he  had  spent  some  little  time  as  a  boy. 
Mr.  Spencer  senior,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  had 
a  very  high  idea  of  the  duties,  responsibilities,  and  in- 
herent dignity  of  his  own  chosen  calling.  At  a  time 
when  there  was  still  truth  in  the  popular  saying  that 
a  man  who  had  failed  in  everything  else  could  buy  a 
birch  and  turn  schoolmaster,  he  realized  to  the  full  the 
teacher's  vast  importance  in  moulding  the  destinies  of 
the  coming  race  ;  and  in  face  of  a  public  opinion  which 
persisted  in  regarding  the  educator  as  belonging  as 
naturally  to  the  lower  grades  as  the  warrior  to  the  up- 


A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  15 

per  grades  of  society,  he  felt  strongly,  as  Carlyle  after- 
wards phrased  it,  that  there  was  a  deeper  and  truer 
glory  in  training  men's  minds  than  in  blowing  their 
bodies  to  pieces  with  gunpowder.  Holding  these  views, 
he  was  not  unnaturally  desirous  that  his  son  should  em- 
brace the  teacher's  profession ;  and  the  signal  success 
which  attended  this  early  and  brief  trial  strengthened 
his  belief  that  Herbert  possessed  in  unusual  degree  all 
the  required  qualifications.  With  a  rare  faculty  for 
luminous  exposition,  he  combined  a  talent  the  vital  im- 
portance of  which  every  practical  teacher  will  at  once 
recognize — a  talent  for  arousing  interest  in  the  subjects 
with  which  he  dealt.  Beyond  this,  his  moral  qualities 
showed  to  no  less  advantage.  As  a  boy  it  had  been  re- 
marked of  him  that,  though  he  strongly  resented  any 
act  of  tyranny  on  the  part  of  a  master,  and  rose  impa- 
tiently against  anything  in  the  shape  of  bullying  from 
his  older  schoolmates,  he  was  throughout  a  favourite 
with  the  younger  children,  because  his  behaviour  to- 
wards them  was  marked  by  the  same  respect  as  he  him- 
self demanded  from  those  above  him.  And  in  the  same 
way,  in  his  new  position,  he  now  before  all  things 
recognized  and  appreciated  the  individualities  of  the 
pupils  committed  to  his  charge,  realizing  in  this  direc- 
tion the  lofty  ideal  of  the  relations  between  teacher  and 
taught  which  he  afterwards  so  strenuously  insisted  upon 
in  his  book  on  education. 

But  all  this  notwithstanding,  the  experiment  ended 
in  nothing  practical — not  apparently  from   any  well- 


16     PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

defined  hesitation  on  young  Spencer's  part  to  follow  his 
father's  wishes  in  the  matter,  but  simply  because  at  the 
moment  his  attention  was  taken  off  in  another  direc- 
tion. Spencer  was  just  at  the  time  in  that  state  of 
absolute  uncertainty  in  regard  to  his  future  movements 
and  prospects  which  is  so  common  with  youths  of  his 
age — and  more  especially,  perhaps,  with  those  who,  con- 
scious of  an  undefined  sense  of  power,  have  as  yet  no 
clearly  ascertained  idea  of  the  special  direction  which 
their  talents  might  most  remuneratively  take.  For  the 
time  being  he  had  no  settled  plan  or  purpose,  and, 
what  is  perhaps  a  little  remarkable,  no  ambition  appears 
to  have  impelled  him  towards  making  a  decisive  move. 
In  this  state  of  inertia  and  indecision  he  was  naturally 
ready  enough  to  swerve  off,  on  this  side  or  that,  upon 
the  smallest  instigation  or  pressure  from  without ;  and 
as  a  result  we  find  him  before  long  abandoning  his  ex- 
periment in  teaching  for  an  experiment  in  civil  engi- 
neering. In  the  autumn  of  1837  an  offer  came  from 
the  chief  engineer  of  the  London  and  Birmingham 
Kail  way,  then  in  process  of  construction ;  and,  accept- 
ing this,  Spencer  now  passed  nearly  a  year  in  the  ordi- 
nary routine  of  engineering  work — partly  in  carrying 
on  surveys,  partly  in  making  drawings.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  year  he  transferred  himself  to  the  Birming- 
ham and  Gloucester  Eailway ;  and  here  a  further  period 
of  eighteen  months  was  spent  in  a  fairly  satisfactory 
way.  During  the  latter  engagement  his  progress  in 
practical  railroad  work  was  marked  by  various  papers  on 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  17 

purely  technical  subjects  which  from  time  to  time  ap- 
peared from  his  pen  in  the  Civil  Engineer's  Journal. 
Furthermore,  the  invention  of  a  little  instrument  which 
he  called  the  velocimeter,  for  testing  the  speed  of  loco- 
motive engines,  bore  witness  to  the  continued  activity  of 
his  mind,  more  especially,  as  usual,  in  the  line  of  origi- 
nal work. 

It  now,  indeed,  seemed  as  if  his  career  in  life  had 
been  at  length  marked  out  for  him — as  if  the  practical 
problem  which  faces  almost  every  young  man  on  the 
confines  of  life  had  in  his  case  received  a  satisfactory 
solution.  From  that  time  onward,  for  the  space  of 
some  eight  or  ten  years,  he  continued  to  be  intermit- 
tently engaged  in  engineering  pursuits — periods  of  con- 
siderable activity  alternating,  however,  with  lengthy 
intervals  during  which  professional  work  remained  at 
an  almost  entire  standstill.  But  by-and-bye,  after  several 
premonitory  recessions  in  the  tide  of  commercial  pros- 
perity, the  railway  mania  ebbed  suddenly  away,  leaving 
Spencer,  along  with  countless  other  young  men,  stranded 
high  and  dry  upon  the  shore.  The  crisis  was  a  serious 
one;  for  those — and  their  name  was  legion — who  had 
been  attracted  to  the  work  during  the  season  of  tem- 
porary boom,  now  found  themselves  committed  to  a 
profession  which  offered  but  little  outlook  as  a  career, 
and  which  was  indeed  seriously  and  almost  fatally  over- 
stocked. Thus,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  Mr.  Spencer 
found  himself  but  little  advanced  towards  anything 
like  a  practical  settlement  in  life.  From  any  merely 


18  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPEXCER. 

worldly  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  past  few  years  had 
been  consumed  in  labours  that  had  left  nothing  tangi- 
ble behind  them  as  their  result.  In  no  very  hopeful 
frame  of  mind,  therefore,  as  may  be  well  imagined,  he 
had  now  once  more  to  beat  a  retreat  to  his  family  home 
in  Derby,  and  to  cast  about  him  with  a  view  to  decid- 
ing upon  his  next  step. 

Regarded  in  the  light  of  the  man's  later  work, 
however,  these  years  had  not  been  altogether  fruitless. 
In  the  not  infrequent  intervals  of  leisure  which  his  pro- 
fessional avocations  had  allowed  him,  or,  more  properly 
speaking,  perhaps,  had  forced  upon  him,  he  had  found 
an  opportunity  of  persevering  with  a  good  deal  of 
miscellaneous  study,  and  even  of  making  a  modest 
start  with  his  own  work  as  a  thinker  and  writer.  The 
studies  continued  to  be  varied  and  irregular  enough,  it 
is  true ;  but  Spencer's  was,  it  would  seem,  precisely  one 
of  those  minds  whose  development  is  best  secured  by 
that  very  heterogeneity  of  reading  and  interests  which 
would  prove  disastrous  to  men  of  less  strong,  independ- 
ent, and  organizing  genius.  Science  of  all  kinds  still 
occupied  the  largest  share  of  his  attention;  and  it  is 
especially  interesting  to  find  him,  during  this  period, 
busily  engaged  in  the  perusal  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell's 
Principles  of  Geology — a  work  then  still  in  its  earlier 
editions.  The  point  which  is  perhaps  particularly  wor- 
thy of  remark  in  regard  to  this  incident  is,  that  it  was 
in  these  volumes  that  Mr.  Spencer  in  all  probability  first 
came  face  to  face  with  that  doctrine  of  the  gradual 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  19 

branching  and  rebranching  of  species  which  in  those 
pre-Darwinian  days  went  somewhat  vaguely  by  the 
name  of  the  development  hypothesis.  It  is  matter  of 
common  knowledge  that,  with  a  candour  and  courage 
rare  even  among  scientific  men,  Lyell  in  after-years 
yielded  to  the  arguments  of  the  evolutionists,  or,  as 
he  sometimes  phrased  it,  "  read  his  recantation  "  ;  so 
that,  after  standing  out  against  the  Lamarckian  doc- 
trine of  "  innate  progressive  development,"  he  finally 
incorporated  the  law  of  natural  selection  in  the  later 
editions  of  his  classic  works.  But  in  the  volumes 
which  were  then  in  Mr.  Spencer's  hands,  Lyell  made 
common  cause  with  the  uniformitarians  against  the 
metaphysically  conceived  progressionism  of  Lamarck 
and  his  disciples;  and  the  result  was  that  Spencer's 
first  acquaintance  with  the  theory  of  development  was 
in  the  form  of  a  hypothesis  to  be  analyzed  and  thrown 
aside.  This  is  not  the  only  case  in  which  a  new 
doctrine  has  been  set  forth  with  a  great  array  of  ad- 
verse arguments,  and  the  arguments  themselves  have 
proved  less  strong  than  the  conception  against  which 
they  were  directed ;  in  other  words,  this  is  not  the 
first  instance  in  which  a  convert  has  been  made  by 
the  attacks  of  an  enemy.  Spencer  rose  from  the  peru- 
sal of  LyelPs  book  with  a  distinct  bias  in  favour  of 
Lamarck's  views,  and  shortly  afterwards  became  an 
ardent  believer  in  the  general  idea  of  organic  develop- 
ment. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  ready  acceptance  on 
his  part  of  an  opinion  which  was  then  held  to  be  so 


20  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

radical  and  startling — an  opinion  which,  beyond  ques- 
tion, as  we  now  see  clearly  enough,  rested  in  those  days 
upon  foundations  altogether  too  vague  and  uncertain  to 
appeal  with  much  force  to  the  rigidly  scientific  intel- 
lect, demanding  hard  and  tangible  facts — was  due  in  no 
small  measure  to  the  singularly  well-prepared  condition 
of  his  own  mind.  His  pronounced  tendency  had  al- 
ready asserted  itself  to  regard  the  interrelations  of  all 
phenomena  as  illustrations  of  the  processes  of  natural 
causation ;  and  the  developmental  view  presented  itself 
to  him  in  so  favourable  a  light,  because  it  helped  him 
materially  in  the  task  of  grouping  all  the  phenomena 
of  creation  within  the  limits  of  the  action  of  uniform 
and  undeviating  law.  No  one  needs  to  be  reminded 
that  the  force  of  any  given  argument  is  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  its  relation  to  the  condition  of  the  particular 
mind  before  which  it  is  laid ;  a  pressure  sufficient  to 
dislodge  a  mass  already  on  the  verge  of  toppling  over  a 
precipice,  would  be  useless  to  restrain  that  mass  were 
the  impetus  downward  once  given.  There  is  nothing 
so  very  astonishing,  therefore,  in  the  fact  that  Spencer 
was  rapidly  convinced  by  a  course  of  reasoning  and  a 
selection  of  illustrations  which  would  mean  compara- 
tively little  to  us  now,  and  which,  indeed,  had  no  effect 
whatever  upon  the  vast  majority  of  the  scientific  stu- 
dents of  his  generation. 

There  can  be  little  doubt,  too,  that  it  was  owing  to 
this  clearly  marked  trend  of  his  mental  organization, 
that  with  the  maturing  and  consolidation  of  his  thought 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  21 

about  this  time  there  went  the  gradual  dropping  of  the 
current  creed.  The  whole  case  on  this  head  has  prob- 
ably been  summed  up  when  we  say  that  the  miraculous 
element  upon  which  that  creed  then  laid  the  principal 
emphasis,  was  fatally  out  of  keeping  with  the  entire 
character  of  his  mind.  There  are  many  men  (and, 
owing  to  what  Mr.  Lecky  has  called  the  "  declining 
sense  of  the  miraculous,"  their  number  is  daily  growing 
greater)  for  whom  the  so-called  supernatural  elements 
in  all  popular  theologies  are  just  as  immediately  re- 
pugnant as  they  were  immediately  attractive  to  even 
the  most  acute  and  thoughtful  minds  during  the  ages 
of  faith.  Where  they  instinctively  sought  a  metaphys- 
ical interpretation  for  all  phenomena,  we  just  as  in- 
stinctively recoil  from  any  such  interpretation.  By  the 
operation,  generation  after  generation,  of  a  thousand 
subtle  influences,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  life  has  been 
altered ;  the  measures  of  judgment  and  the  standards 
of  probability  have  alike  been  changed.  Without  going 
so  far  as  to  attempt  to  settle  the  whole  question  of 
miracles  on  purely  a  priori  grounds — than  which,  let  it 
be  said,  and  said  distinctly,  no  course  could  be  more  un- 
scientific or  more  unsatisfactory — many  a  man  born  and 
nurtured  in  the  secular  and  skeptical  environment  of 
the  present  day  finds  that  question  often  and  neces- 
sarily resolve  itself  into  one  of  relative  antecedent  prob- 
ability, as  between  two  possible  explanations — a  tem- 
porary aberration  from  that  which  verified  experience 
has  revealed  to  us  as  the  undeviating  course  of  Nature, 


22  PHILOSOPHY   OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

and  an  error  in  human  testimony  or  interpretation ;  and 
since,  first,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  do  not  personally 
know  anything  of  that  disturbance  in  the  normal  order 
of  things  which  is  called  miracle ;  and,  secondly,  the 
constant  tendency  of  historic  and  scientific  investiga- 
tion is  to  bring  every  such  supposed  disturbance  into 
the  category  of  law ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  every 
passing  day  yields  abundant  examples  of  the  absolutely 
untrustworthy  character  of  even  the  best-intentioned 
and  most  carefully-sifted  evidence;  it  is  clear  that  to 
the  philosophical — that  is,  the  common-sense  view  of 
things — the  balance  of  probability  must  in  every  case 
be  as  infinity  to  one  against  the  alleged  miracle. 

I  am  not,  let  me  insist,  undertaking  for  a  moment 
to  defend  the  popular  thesis  that  a  miracle — in  the 
sense  of  an  occurrence  unusual  to,  or  not  to  be  ac- 
counted for,  by  our  limited  knowledge  of  natural  pro- 
cesses— could  not  conceivably  happen,  and  therefore 
never  has  happened.  As  Prof.  Huxley  has  well  pointed 
out,  such  a  proposition,  however  attractive  it  might 
have  looked  in  the  days  of  Hume,  would  not  now  com- 
mend itself  to  any  mind  trained  in  scientific  methods  of 
investigation.  What  I  do  maintain  is,  that  under  any 
circumstances  the  occurrence  of  a  miracle,  and  still 
more,  therefore,  of  a  long  series  of  miracles,  must  be 
held  as  antecedently  so  improbable  that  the  fullest, 
clearest,  and  most  unmistakable  detailed  evidence  must 
be  required  in  its  favour  to  counterbalance  the  evidence 
furnished  against  it  by  the  generalized  experiences  of 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  23 

mankind.  The  question,  therefore,  assumes  the  form 
as  to  whether,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  any 
such  evidence  is  or  can  be  forthcoming  in  regard  to 
any  miracle  alleged  to  have  been  performed  under  such 
conditions  as  those  existing,  for  instance,  in  the  early 
days  of  Christianity.  Hence,  the  principle  of  relative 
probability,  whatever  may  otherwise  be  its  value,  should 
here  be  allowed  its  fullest  weight ;  and  the  greater  the 
antecedent  improbability,  the  stronger  must  be  the  ar- 
gument advanced  to  overthrow  it.* 

Here,  doubtless,  we  possess  the  explanation  of  Spen- 
cer's own  attitude,  taken  up,  it  would  seem,  about  this 
time,  towards  the  orthodox  creed.  That  he  ever  for- 
mally rejected  the  current  theology  seems  extremely 
unlikely ;  for  this  would  imply  that  he  passed  it  under 
some  kind  of  systematic  examination  or  review,  analyz- 
ing and  weighing  the  evidence  for  and  against  it,  and 
dealing  with  the  whole  question  as  one  pressing  for 
solution.  This  he  does  not  appear  to  have  done.  The 
fact  seems  rather  to  be  that  it  never  became  absorbed 
into  his  thought,  because  there  was  nothing  in  his  in- 
tellectual make-up  which  would  attract  it,  or  with 
which  it  could  cohere;  no  place  into  which  it  would 
fit  without  upsetting  and  destroying  the  whole  system 
of  his  belief. 


*  See  particularly  on  the  general  question  of  miracles,  regarded 
on  its  philosophical  side,  the  chapter  on  Miracles  in  relation  to 
the  order  of  nature,  in  that  masterly  and  learned  work,  Super- 
natural Religion. 


24  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

But  Spencer,  during  the  period  now  referred  to,  had 
done  more  than  by  thought  and  study  to  lay  up  a  store 
of  materials  for  future  use.  He  had  delivered  himself 
of  his  first  message  to  the  world.  It  was  in  the  summer 
of  1842,  or  soon  after  he  had  completed  his  twenty- 
second  year,  that  he  began  the  publication,  in  a  paper 
called  The  Nonconformist,  of  a  series  of  letters  on  The 
Proper  Sphere  of  Government.  These  were  subse- 
quently revised,  and  made  their  appearance  in  pam- 
phlet form  during  the  course  of  the  following  year. 
Any  discussion  of  the  relation  of  this  little  work  to  the 
general  order  of  Mr.  Spencer's  thought  must  be  post- 
poned till  another  chapter  ;  here,  dealing  only  with  the 
general  incidents  of  his  career,  we  are  called  upon  sim- 
ply to  notice  that  whatever  value  his  philosophizing 
might  possibly  have  had  as  a  contribution  towards  the 
solution  of  the  problems  of  the  world  at  large,  it  went 
but  small  way  indeed  towards  helping  him  to  a  satisfac- 
tory solution  of  the  practical  problem  of  his  own  life. 
Teaching  had  been  abandoned  for  civil  engineering, 
which  in  its  turn  had  abandoned  him,  and  the  outlook 
seemed  gloomy  indeed.  One  thing  only  his  adventure 
into  the  field  of  literature  had  done  for  him.  It  had 
shown  him  the  possibility,  now  that  other  things  had 
failed,  of  falling  back  upon  his  pen.  In  pursuance  of 
some  kind  of  vague  idea  of  turning  his  talent  in  this 
way  to  account,  he  now  drifted  up  to  London — to  the 
great  city  which  Mrs.  Browning  so  aptly  described  as 
"  the  gathering-place  of  souls."  Here,  after  not  a  little 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  25 

of  beating  about  and  disappointment,  he  secured  a  posi- 
tion upon  the  Economist  newspaper,  of  which  in  1848 
he  became  sub-editor.  This  latter  appointment,  what- 
ever may  have  been  its  drawbacks — and  from  these  it 
was  not  by  any  means  free — at  least  possessed  the 
double  advantage  of  yielding  him  a  fair  foundation  of 
income  (sufficient,  at  all  events,  for  his  pretty  modest 
bachelor  needs),  and  of  allowing  him  a  rather  unusual 
margin  of  time  for  the  pursuit  of  his  own  study  and 
work.  The  acceptance  of  this  post,  which  he  held  till 
1852,  established  him  in  London,  and  with  it  may  there- 
fore be  fairly  said  to  open  a  new  and  entirely  different 
chapter  in  his  life. 

I  have  been  led  to  dwell  at  some  considerable  length 
on  the  events  and  circumstances  of  these  earlier  years — 
trivial  though  some  of  them  may  seem  to  be — for  more 
than  one  reason.  In  the  first  place,  it  always  appears 
to  me  that  the  experimental  period  of  boyhood  and 
youth — the  period  when  so  much  is  attempted  in  a 
more  or  less  serious  way,  and  so  little  actually  done — 
forms  by  far  the  most  fascinating  portion  of  the  biogra- 
phy of  any  man  who  has  left  his  mark  upon  the  world. 
The  early  struggles,  the  repeated  failures,  the  uncer- 
tainties, disappointments,  doubts,  the  ofttimes  long 
and  wearisome  searching  for  the  life-work  which  is 
dimly  felt  to  lie  somewhere  in  readiness  for  the  ready 
but  as  yet  unguided  hand — these  things  are  full  of  the 
pictnresqueness  of  romance,  and,  while  they  arouse  the 
interest  of  all,  possess  for  the  young,  the  ardent,  and 


26  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

the  ambitious,  a  world  of  inspiration  also.  And,  in  the 
second  place,  just  as  this  period  is  the  most  attractive 
for  all  readers,  so,  too,  it  is  beyond  question  the  most 
important  for  those  who  desire  to  study  a  great  mind  in 
the  process  of  its  development,  to  surprise  something  of 
the  secret  of  its  power,  and  to  realize  and  measure  the 
subtle  forces  and  influences  which  played  their  part  in 
its  education  and  consolidation.  Beyond  this,  also,  we 
have  to  remember  that,  in  order  to  do  justice  to  the 
record  of  any  life,  we  must  beware  of  being  misled  by 
the  desire  to  secure  an  artificial  balance  among  the  dif- 
fferent  divisions  of  our  sketch.  It  is  often  well  worth 
while  to  linger  over  the  earlier  years,  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  thrusting  into  a  few  paragraphs  the  actual  ac- 
complishments of  after-life.  For  the  period  of  achieve- 
ment, no  matter  how  brilliant  that  achievement  may  be, 
is  after  all  only  the  period  of  translation  into  present 
fact  of  the  impulses  and  powers  which,  even  from  the 
cradle,  have  been  gathering  in  silence  against  the  time 
when  the  moment  for  manifestation  should  arrive. 
Hence,  for  this  period  a  brief  outline  is  often  enough ; 
while  the  long  years  of  preparation,  during  which  the 
nature  is  plastic  and  every  detail  tells,  require  and 
should  properly  receive  a  fuller  treatment  at  the  biog- 
rapher's hands.  It  is  thus  that  I  have  thought  fit  to 
linger  a  little  over  those  portions  of  Spencer's  life 
which  to  those  about  him,  no  less  than  to  himself, 
might  well  have  seemed  productive  of  nothing  but  the 
most  unsatisfactory  and  disheartening  results,  but  which 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  27 

* 
gain  significance  and  interest  from  the  knowledge  that 

we  now  possess  that  they  were  aiding  to  prepare  him, 
though  by  singular  and  circuitous  ways,  for  the  real 
work  of  his  life,  which  he  had  not  yet  begun. 

We  pass  on,  then,  to  sketch  out  very  briefly  Mr. 
Spencer's  career  after  his  settlement  in  the  metropolis. 
We  have  seen  that  one  of  the  advantages  of  his  position 
upon  the  Economist  was  that  there  was  left  him,  after 
the  official  duties  of  the  day  had  been  performed,  a 
balance  of  time  sufficient  for  the  regular,  if  not  very 
rapid,  prosecution  of  other  work.  It  was  during  these 
leisure  hours  that,  in  the  course  of  the  next  two 
years  or  thereabouts,  he  wrote  his  first  important  work, 
Social  Statics.  This  volume  contained  an  extremely 
fresh  and  original  treatment  of  social  problems;  was 
startling  in  many  of  its  ideas,  and  extremely  radical  in 
its  whole  tone  and  tendencies ;  but,  as  is  sufficiently 
well  known,  Mr.  Spencer  afterwards  grew  dissatisfied 
with  its  metaphysical  implications,  and  at  one  time 
made  an  effort  to  withdraw  it  from  circulation.  At  the 
date  of  its  publication,  however,  it  made  no  small  stir  in 
the  thinking  world,  though,  of  course,  it  never  appealed 
to  a  very  wide  body  of  readers.  That  which  it  did  for 
him  personally  was  to  bring  him  rather  prominently 
into  public  notice,  and  to  introduce  him  to  a  select 
circle  of  advanced  thinkers,  who  were  not  slow  to  realize 
the  exceptional  strength  and  independence  of  his  mind. 
His  long  intimacy  with  Prof.  Huxley  dates  from  this 
time ;  and  it  was  then,  too,  that  he  formed  his  ever- 


28  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

% 
valued  friendship  with  the  Brays  and  the  Hennells,  of 

Coventry ;  with  the  versatile  George  Henry  Lewes,  then 
currently  known  as  the  ugliest  man  and  the  best  talker 
in  London ;  and  with  that  extraordinary  woman  who 
was  then  sub-editing  the  Westminster  Review,  but  who 
was  afterwards  to  take  the  whole  literary  world  by 
storm  with  the  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  and  Adam  Bede. 
When,  in  September,  1851,  George  Eliot  wrote  to  Mr. 
Bray  that  she  had  recently  met  "  a  Mr.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, who  has  just  brought  out  a  large  work  on  Social 
Statics,  which  Lewes  pronounces  the  best  he  has  ever 
seen  on  the  subject,"  she  described  the  commencement 
of  an  association  full  of  mutual  reverence  and  esteem, 
which  was  to  last  till  death  ended  it  by  the  removal  of 
the  great  novelist  herself.  More  than  this,  however; 
Social  Statics  gave  Mr.  Spencer  a  practical  and  unmis- 
takable revelation  of  his  own  powers,  and  pointed  out 
to  him  more  clearly  than  had  been  done  before  the  lines 
which  his  subsequent  reading  and  thinking  were  des- 
tined to  pursue.  Shortly  after  its  appearance  he  began 
his  connection  with  the  Westminster  Review — a  maga- 
zine which  had  then  recently  been  purchased,  and  estab- 
lished on  a  new  basis  for  the  promulgation  of  advanced 
views  of  social,  scientific,  and  religious  questions,  by  an 
enterprising  though  somewhat  erratic  publisher  named 
John  Chapman.  It  was  in  the  pages  of  this  review 
that  he  began  the  publication  of  those  elaborate  es- 
says which,  though  now  mainly  interesting,  perhaps,  as 
auxiliary  to  his  great  work,  and  as  marking  out  the 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  29 

lines  of  his  approach  to  and  preparation  for  it,  were 
enough  at  the  time  to  call  attention  to  the  rise  of  a 
new  force  in  the  philosophic  world.  Here,  as  we  have 
to  deal  with  these  essays  from  the  outside — as  events 
in  the  man's  life — it  is  sufficient  if  we  say  of  them  that 
their  success  enabled  him  after  a  while  to  drift  out  of 
the  semi-journalistic  and  routine  work  in  which  he  had 
been  engaged  upon  the  Economist,  and  to  devote  his 
whole  time  and  energy  to  what  was  now  beginning  to 
assume  the  character  of  a  chosen  undertaking. 

For  some  eight  years  after  this,  with  an  interval  of 
eighteen  months  of  enforced  idleness — of  which  more 
anon — he  continued  to  be  pretty  regularly  engaged  with 
magazine  work  of  this  kind,  and  in  addition  produced 
in  1855  a  bulky  volume  on  psychology,  afterwards  in- 
corporated as  a  portion  of  his  larger  work  on  the  same 
subject  in  the  Synthetic  system.  All  this  kept  him 
busy  till  1860.  But  in  the  meantime  a  change,  destined 
to  be  fraught  with  results  of  a  permanently  disastrous 
character,  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  his  life.  Over- 
work had  brought  on  a  nervous  breakdown  of  so  serious 
a  kind  that  for  fully  a  year  and  a  half  he  was  forced  to 
lay  the  pen  aside  and  suspend  his  labours  altogether. 
Partial  restoration  followed  this  prolonged  rest,  but  it 
was  partial  restoration  only.  From  that  time  to  this 
his  condition  has  been  one  of  intermittent  invalidism, 
dyspepsia  and  insomnia  being  the  two  arch-enemies 
which  it  has  been  a  hard  struggle  for  him  to  keep  at 
bay.  His  constant  insistence  upon  the  need  of  moder- 


30  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

ation  in  work,  and  his  eloquent  preaching  of  the  gos- 
pel  of  attention  to  health,  gain  an  added  significance 
from  his  own  bitter  experiences  during  these  five-and- 
thirty  years. 

The  year  1860,  to  the  verge  of  which  we  have  now 
followed  him,  marks  the  great  crisis  of  Spencer's  life,  and 
beyond  this  is  forever  memorable  in  the  history  of  mod- 
ern thought,  for  it  was  this  year  which  witnessed  the 
publication  of  the  prospectus  of  his  philosophic  system. 
In  the  light  of  this  new  and  tremendous  undertaking, 
upon  the  threshold  of  which  he  now  stood,  all  his  previ- 
ous work,  remarkable  as  that  taken  by  itself  had  been, 
assumes  the  proportions  of  mere  experiment  and  prep- 
aration. The  time  had  now  come  for  achievement. 
The  outline  plan  of  the  whole  system  of  Synthetic  Phi- 
losophy was  given  to  the  public,  and  Mr.  Spencer  laid 
his  hand  to  a  task  which  he  knew  would  mean  the  pro- 
duction of  ten  stout  volumes  of  no  very  saleable  char- 
acter, and  which  he  calculated  would  occupy  at  least 
twenty  years  of  regular  and  persistent  work. 

Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  his  circumstances  and 
general  outlook  at  the  time,  that  we  may  be  in  a  posi- 
tion the  more  fully  to  appreciate  all  that  was  implied  by 
self-committal  to  such  an  undertaking.  Marvellous  in 
itself,  that  undertaking  grows  still  more  marvellous 
when  we  come  to  realize  the  conditions  of  its  inception 
and  execution.  In  the  first  place,  Spencer's  financial 
prospects  were  not  in  any  way  satisfactory.  Possessed 
at  the  outset  of  but  small  personal  resources,  he  had 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  31 

frittered  away  the  greater  part  of  these  iu  devotion  to 
studies  which  had  brought  him  but  small  practical  rec- 
ompense. He  had  indeed  derived  something  of  an  in- 
come from  his  pen  ;  but  his  articles  had  demanded  too 
much  careful  thought  and  too  much  conscientious  labour 
to  make  their  production  remunerative  from  the  point 
of  view  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence.  A  small  sum 
of  money  which  had  been  left  him  by  his  uncle,  the 
clergyman,  now  dead,  had  been  wholly  or  largely  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  publication  of  two  volumes  which  had 
so  little  to  commend  them  in  the  popular  market  that 
their  value  as  an  investment  had  been  worse  than  noth- 
ing at  all ;  while  a  further  drain  of  no  inconsiderable 
kind  had  been  made  upon  his  purse  by  eighteen  months 
of  idleness,  and  all  the  added  expenses  consequent  upon 
deranged  health.  Beyond,  and  worse  than  all  this, 
there  was  the  fact  that  his  breakdown  had  left  him  in 
so  impaired  a  condition  that  three  hours  a  day  was  all 
that  he  could  safely  rely  upon  for  the  carrying  forward 
of  his  work.  Finally,  as  a  commercial  enterprise,  the 
proposed  undertaking  offered  nothing  of  an  encourag- 
ing character.  Few  enough  could,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  be  induced  to  lend  their  support  to  such  a 
labour ;  for  the  public  to  which  appeal  was  to  be  made 
was  necessarily  of  a  very  limited  character;  while, 
among  those  who  looked  on  with  partial  interest  or 
half-aroused  sympathy,  there  were  many  who  depre- 
cated the  self-imposed  task  as  too  vast,  comprehensive, 
and  ambitious  for  adequate  accomplishment  within  the 


32  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

limits  of  a  single  life,  and  as  even  foolhardy  in  the  un- 
certain state  of  his  health.  Surely  such  obstacles  as 
these  might  well  have  proved  enough  to  frighten  a  less 
courageous  and  less  determined  man.  But  Spencer  be- 
lieved that  he  had  a  gospel  to  preach  to  a  world  which, 
if  indifferent  at  the  moment,  might  presently  be  in- 
duced to  listen  and  to  learn ;  and  in  the  preaching  of 
that  gospel  he  recognized  his  own  contribution  to  the 
forces  which  were  to  make  for  the  welfare  and  advance- 
ment of  the  race.  Hence,  with  a  nobleness  of  heroic 
purpose,  a  fixity  of  determination,  and  a  self-consecra- 
tion, to  which  the  towering  merits  of  the  performance 
upon  its  purely  intellectual  side  must  not  be  allowed 
altogether  to  blind  us,  Mr.  Spencer  entered  upon  the 
prosecution  of  his  task.  One  thing  only  is  more  im- 
pressive than  his  calm  and  unfaltering  confidence  in 
the  adequacy  of  his  own  powers  to  the  carrying  out  of 
his  gigantic  plan ;  and  that  is,  his  firm  faith  in  the  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  those  great  principles  which  it  was 
his  high  privilege  to  enunciate  to  the  world. 

From  that  time  onward  there  is  little  to  report  be- 
yond the  gradual  progress  of  his  life-work  towards  com- 
pletion. All  else  in  his  biography  henceforth  assumes 
a  purely  episodical  character.  Difficulties,  in  addition 
to  those  of  which  his  calculations  had  already  taken 
account,  have  thrown  unlooked-for  impediments  in  his 
way.  At  one  time,  for  instance,  the  small  and  grudg- 
ing support  yielded  him  by  an  enlightened  reading 
public  drove  him  to  the  very  brink  of  discontmuiiig  his 


A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  33 

labours  altogether — at  which  critical  juncture  an  in- 
cident occurred  which  I  cannot  forbear  adverting  to 
here.  A  number  of  American  admirers,  made  aware  of 
this  half -formed  determination  of  abandonment,  sent  to 
him  by  the  hands  of  his  dear  and  constant  friend,  the 
late  E.  L.  Youmans — who  did  so  much  to  spread  the 
light  of  evolutionary  doctrine  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic— a  purse  of  money  and  a  gold  watch,  as  some  ex- 
pression of  their  own  sympathy  and  esteem.  The 
money  Mr.  Spencer  accepted  as  a  public  trust  to  be  em- 
ployed for  public  purposes ;  while  the  watch  he  prizes 
to-day  as  one  of  his  most  valued  possessions.  Other 
interruptions  were  from  time  to  time  occasioned  by  his 
having  to  turn  aside  from  the  work  itself  to  deal  with 
matters  only  indirectly  connected  with  it — such  as  re- 
plies to  criticism,  and  the  correction  of  misconceptions 
and  misinterpretations  (in  which  distracting  exercise 
some  of  us  feel  that  he  has  spent  somewhat  too  large  a 
share  of  his  time) ;  the  supervision  of  the  preparation 
and  arrangement  of  that  vast  storehouse  of  facts  and 
data,  the  Descriptive  Sociology,  and  the  writing  of  his 
delightful  little  introduction  to  the  same  subject. 
Moreover,  in  calculating  upon  a  regular  working 
capacity  of  even  three  hours  a  day,  the  event  proved 
that  Mr.  Spencer  had  gone  beyond  his  limitations. 
During  many  a  lengthened  period  of  more  than  usually 
bad  health,  he  has  been  forced  to  seek  renewal  of 
strength  in  absolute  repose ;  while  through  many  a 
weary  month  together  the  work  has  grown  beneath  his 


34:  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

hands  at  hardly  more  than  a  paragraph  or  two  each 
day.  In  face  of  all  this,  the  real  wonder  is  that  in  the 
thirty-three  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the  prospectus 
was  published  so  much  of  the  scheme  there  mapped  out 
in  detail  should  have  been  translated  into  accomplished 
fact.  The  Synthetic  Philosophy,  as  thus  far  published, 
sums  up  a  grand  total  of  upwards  of  5,500  closely- 
printed  pages;  and  this  would  constitute  no  mean 
literary  baggage  for  a  man  in  robust  health  and  the  full 
command  of  his  working  powers.  A  few  years  ago  it 
seemed  impossible  that  this  monumental  work  would 
ever  reach  completion;  and  the  pathetic  personal  state- 
ments prefixed  to  the  Data  of  Ethics  and  Justice 
showed  how  fully  Mr.  Spencer  himself  realized  the 
gradual  ebbing  away  of  strength  and  opportunity.  But 
with  rare  courage  and  perseverance  he  has  struggled 
on,  and  the  recent  publication  of  the  last  instalment  of 
the  Principles  of  Ethics  brings  with  it  the  hope  that 
his  life-labours  may  yet  be  rounded  off  to  a  completed 
whole. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

SPENCER'S  EAKLIER  WORK — PREPARATION  FOR  THE 
SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

THERE  is  no  safer  or  more  satisfactory  approach  to 
the  study  of  any  system  of  philosophy  than  by  the  way 
of  its  evolution.  If  we  want  to  put  ourselves  into  a 
position  to  understand  the  attitude  taken  up  by  any 
great  thinker  towards  the  world  and  its  varied  problems 
— if  we  want  to  catch  the  personal  note  in  his  utter- 
ances, and  to  appreciate  the  relation  of  his  own  ideas  to 
the  intellectual  movements  of  his  time,  we  cannot  do 
better  than  to  make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  development  and  consolidation  of  the  great 
foundation  principles  of  his  thought.  The  general 
question,  What  was  the  nature  of  his  teaching?  may 
thus  properly  be  preceded  by  one  still  more  general, 
How  came  it  to  be  what  it  was  ?  To  consider  this  latter 
question  in  relation  to  the  system  of  Synthetic  Philoso- 
phy is  the  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  ;  in  fulfilling 
which  we  shall  not  only  lead  up,  by  a  kind  of  easy 
grade,  to  that  system  itself,  but  shall  also  be  able  to 
reach  some  definite  conclusions  respecting  the  historic 


36  PHILOSOPHY  OP   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

connection  of  Mr.  Spencer  with  the  modern  doctrine  of 
evolution  at  large — a  matter,  as  we  shall  see,  of  no  small 
interest  and  importance. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  we  have  to  review  the 
growth  and  solidification  of  Mr.  Spencer's  thought — in 
other  words,  the  elaboration,  as  exhibited  in  his  earlier 
writings,  of  that  conception  of  evolution  which  was  to 
find  its  definite  expression  in  the  majestic  series  of 
works  of  which  the  Synthetic  Philosophy  is  composed. 
Let  us  begin  by  making  ourselves  acquainted  with  the 
starting-point  of  his  mental  development — that  is,  with 
the  general  theory  of  things  which  was  current  during 
his  early  years,  and  under  the  influence  of  which,  in 
common  with  all  his  contemporaries,  he  grew  to  man's 
estate. 

The  period  of  Spencer's  youth  and  ripening  man- 
hood was  a  period  of  transition  in  scientific  and  philo- 
sophic thought.  On  the  ushering  in  of  the  present  cen- 
tury the  old  cosmology  still  held  sway  with  unabated 
vigour,  along  with  all  those  time-worn  dogmas  concern- 
ing human  life  and  destiny  which  had  grown  up  with 
it  during  ages  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  and  with 
which  its  own  existence  was  now  inextricably  bound  up. 
What  that  cosmology  and  what  those  dogmas  meant  is  a 
matter  of  such  common  history  that  we  need  not  linger 
over  them  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  unques- 
tioned doctrines  of  special  creation,  fixed  types,  and 
a  recent  origin  of  the  universe,  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
them  all,  and  that  it  was  in  the  light  of  those  doctrines 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  37 

that  the  world  and  life  and  man  were  one  and  all 
interpreted. 

But  before  the  century  had  got  far  upon  its  way, 
signs  began  to  manifest  themselves  of  an  approaching 
change  in  the  higher  regions  of  thought.  The  special- 
creation  hypothesis  and  the  postulate  of  the  world's 
recent  origin  and  rapid  manufacture  had  served  well 
enough  so  long  as  their  field  had  remained  uninvaded  by 
the  results  of  investigation — so  long  as  they  had  not 
been  confronted  with  definite  facts.  In  perfect  keeping 
with  the  little  that  had  been  known  of  the  universe  in 
the  darkness  of  the  middle  ages,  they  required  that  no 
jot  or  tittle  should  be  added  to  that  knowledge,  to  hold 
their  place  secure.  But  this  could  no  longer  be.  The 
time  came  when  investigation  grew  active,  and  definite 
facts — angular,  awkward,  unpleasant  facts,  which  (after 
their  reprehensible  manner)  were  irreverent  enough  to 
refuse  to  fit  into  the  most  sacred  and  deeply-cherished 
theory — began  to  accumulate  with  startling  rapidity. 
The  result  was  that  the  old  conception  of  things  began, 
little  by  little,  to  fall  into  disrepute,  and  the  theological 
edifice  of  ages  was  shaken  at  its  very  foundations.  Sci- 
ence showed,  with  a  conclusiveness  which  remained  un- 
touched by  all  the  special  pleading  with  which  her 
arguments  and  revelations  were  assailed,  that  the  popu- 
lar assumptions  about  the  age  of  the  world  were  abso- 
lutely untenable ;  that  the  commencement  of  life,  and 
even  of  human  life  upon  our  globe,  so  far  from  taking 
us  back  only  a  few  paltry  thousands  of  years,  lay  count- 


38  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

less  millions  of  ages  behind  us ;  and  that  such  vague 
vestiges  of  our  race  as  have  been  handed  down  to  us  in 
sacred  book  and  popular  legend  are  as  nothing  com- 
pared with  that  tremendous  mass  of  human  experiences 
which  will  never  find  their  historian.  Worse  than  all, 
turning  full  upon  the  doctrine  of  special  manufacture, 
she  opened  up  the  grand  geologic  record,  and  read 
thence,  as  from  the  pages  of  a  mighty  volume,  the  long, 
stupendous  story  of  those  vast  cosmic  changes  which, 
through  aeons  of  unreckoned  time,  have  slowly  moulded 
and  fashioned  the  world  into  the  condition  in  which  we 
find  it  to-day. 

That  these  revelations  were  of  the  most  vital  inter- 
est to  all  thinking  men  need  hardly  be  said ;  nor  is  it 
necessary  here  to  dwell  on  the  feverish  panic  of  the 
theologians,  who  hurried  into  the  field  with  all  their 
heavy  artillery,  prominent  amid  which  was  the  great- 
gun  argument,  which  had  already  done  yeoman  service 
on  many  another  such  occasion,  that  the  very  existence  of 
Christianity  was  bound  up  with  the  story  of  the  creation 
as  narrated  in  the  first  chapters  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures.* What  is  here  of  moment  is  to  notice  the  general 


*  How  fierce  and  obstinate  was  the  opposition  offered  to  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  from  this  standpoint  we  of  the  present  day 
find  it  no  easy  matter  to  imagine.  Even  such  a  man  as  Hugh 
Miller  imported  theological  considerations  into  his  scientific  dis- 
cussions, and  fell  back  upon  the  declaration  that  acceptance  of 
evolution  meant  nullification  of  the  central  truths  of  Christianity. 
It  has  been  reserved  for  a  later  generation,  passing  into  a  fresh 
phase  in  the  history  of  evolutionary  thought,  to  discover  that 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  39 

effect  of  the  new  discoveries  upon  the  scientific  mind. 
That  effect  was  at  the  outset  almost  entirely  a  negative 
one.  The  old  theories  had  been  destroyed,  but  as  yet 
there  was  nothing  to  take  their  place ;  the  theological 
interpretation  of  the  world's  history  was  seen  to  be  ab- 
surdly insufficient  and  unreasonable,  but  for  the  time  be- 
ing no  scientific  interpretation  in  lieu  thojeof  appeared 
to  be  forthcoming.  Hence  followed  a  kind  of  intel- 
lectual interregnum,  during  which  everything  was  vague, 
shifting,  tentative.  Meanwhile,  however,  things  were 
not  by  any  means  standing  still.  The  unceasing  activ- 
ity of  investigators  in  the  special  sciences  resulted  in 
vast  accumulations  of  well-established  facts,  and  thus 
yielded  the  materials  in  the  absence  of  which  nothing 
of  real  or  permanent  value  could  have  been  accom- 
plished. And  at  the  same  time  (largely,  indeed,  as 
a  consequence  of  this  extension  upon  all  sides  of  the 
scientific  domain)  there  was  ever  growing  and  deep- 
ening a  conception  of  unbroken  causation  in  cosmic 
changes,  of  the  universality  of  law,  and  the  unity  of 
Nature  and  of  natural  processes — a  conception  in  no 
small  degree  led  up  to  by  such  discoveries  as  those  of 
the  undulatory  theory  of  light  and  heat,  and  of  the 
correlation  of  all  the  forces  known  to  exact  science.* 


there  is,  after  all,  no  conflict  between  the  old  ideas  and  the  new — 
a  convenient  discovery  now  that  the  new  ideas  can  no  longer  be 
gainsaid. 

*  This  tendency  toward  unification  was  indeed  an  outgrowth 
from  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  was  at  bottom 


40 

Thus,  in  spite  of  the  temporary  suspense  and  hesitation, 
no  time  was  being  lost.  As  we  can.  now  see,  the  way 
was  being  slowly  prepared  for  a  great  scientific  general- 
ization— a  generalization  which,  overthrowing  all  the  old 
positions  once  and  for  all,  was  in  the  sequel  to  alter  ab- 
solutely and  fundamentally  the  whole  trend  and  current 
of  thought,  n«t  only  as  regards  the  outer  organic  world 
and  the  phenomena  presented  by  it,  but  as  regards  also 
the  countless  practical  problems  in  life  and  society,  in 
morality  and  religion,  which  are  forever  pressing  on  us 
for  solution. 

Such,  in  the  briefest  possible  summary,  was  the  gen- 
eral intellectual  character  of  the  period  at  which  Mr. 
Spencer  began  the  labours  of  his  life.  Even  the  sketch 
just  given,  crude  and  imperfect  as  it  necessarily  is,  will 
help  us  to  understand  the  growth  of  his  own  ideas,  and 
their  relation  to  the  changing  thought  of  the  day. 

We  have  to  go  back  to  the  year  1842,  and  to  the 
series  of  letters  on  The  Proper  Sphere  of  Government, 
with  which  Spencer,  then  hardly  more  than  a  boy, 
entered,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  his  literary  career. 


merely  one  expression  of  that  general  simplification  of  life  and 
thought  which,  as  Mr.  John  Morley  has  pointed  out,  "was  the 
keynote  of  the  revolutionary  time."  (See  his  Rousseau,  vol.  i,  pp. 
4,  5 ;  and  Introduction  to  the  Poetical  Works  of  Wordsworth,  p. 
Ixi.)  It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  notice  what  Gold- 
smith, voicing  the  average  conservative  opinion  of  his  day,  has  to 
say  about  Montesquieu,  one  of  the  early  leaders  of  this  particular 
movement  in  speculation  (Inquiry  into  the  Present  State  of  Polite 
Learning,  chapter  vi). 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  41 

With  the  political  tendencies  of  this  production  we 
have  here  no  special  concern,  though  it'  may  be  worth 
while  to  mention  that  the  key-note  is  there  struck  of 
that  famous  doctrine  of  governmental  non-interference, 
since  so  fully  worked  out  and  so  frequently  insisted  on 
by  the  author.  The  pamphlet  is  significant  for  us  from 
quite  another  point  of  view.  In  the  attempt  which  is 
made  in  it  to  establish  the  nature,  scope,  and  limits — 
that  is,  the  fundamental  principles — of  civil  govern- 
ment, there  is  everywhere  implied  a  belief  in  the  ulti- 
mate dependence  of  social  organization  upon  natural 
causes  and  natural  laws.  In  other  words,  society  is 
from  first  to  last  regarded  not  as  a  manufacture,  but  as 
a  growth — a  view  which,  it  may  be  remarked  inciden- 
tally, though  familiar  enough  in  our  own  day,  at  all 
events  in  its  theoretic  aspects,  was  then  little  known, 
even  as  a  matter  of  mere  speculation.  Throughout  the 
entire  argument  there  run  the  conceptions  of  gradual 
changes  naturally  necessitated,  and  of  the  possibility  of 
a  better  and  better  adjustment  of  man,  physically,  in- 
tellectually, and  morally,  to  the  needs  imposed  by  the 
conditions  of  social  life.  As  Mr.  Spencer  himself  wrote, 
many  years  later,  "  In  these  letters  will  be  found,  along 
with  many  crude  ideas,"  a  "  belief  in  the  conformity  of 
social  phenomena  to  invariable  laws,"  and  "inhuman 
progression  as  determined  by  such  laws."  *  All  this 


*  Reasons  for  Dissenting  from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comte. 
(Essays,  vol.  ii,  p.  137,  note.) 


42  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

revealed,  even  at  so  early  a  stage  of  mental  growth,  a 
marked  tendency  to  regard  the  complicated  and  en- 
tangled phenomena  of  society  from  a  strictly  scientific 
point  of  view  as  phenomena  exhibiting  relations  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  thus  to  be  included  in  the  realm 
of  natural  law.  But  it  meant  something  more  than 
this.  The  distinct  and  conscious  acceptance  of  the 
doctrine  that  society  is  a  thing  not  artificially  pieced 
together,  but  of  slow  and  natural  growth,  implied  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  current  ideas  of  progress  as  an 
irregular  and  fortuitous  process,  and  bore  testimony  to 
at  least  a  vague  germinal  belief  in  a  social  develop- 
ment or  evolution. 

The  momentous  questions  thus  raised  and  briefly 
dealt  with  by  Mr.  Spencer  in  this  youthful  production 
came  in  for  more  thorough  and  extended  treatment  a 
few  years  later  in  his  first  considerable  work,  Social 
Statics,  which  was  published  in  1850,  when  the  author 
was  just  thirty  years  of  age.  The  conception  of  this 
work  had  entered  his  mind  not  long  after  the  appear- 
ance of  the  just-mentioned  pamphlet ;  for,  owing  to  the 
rapid  growth  and  expansion  of  his  ideas  at  the  time, 
Spencer  soon  became  aware  of  the  inadequacy  of  his 
handling  of  the  various  problems  there  opened  up. 
"  The  writing  of  Social  Statics,"  he  has  since  said, 
"  arose  from  a  dissatisfaction  with  the  basis  on  which 
the  doctrines  set  forth  in  those  letters  were  placed." 

*  Reasons  for  Dissenting  from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comte. 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  43 

Even  the  briefest  comparison  of  the  earlier  and  later 
books  is  sufficient  to  show  the  enormous  strides  which 
his  mind  had  taken  during  the  seven  critical  years 
which  divide  them  one  from  the  other.  In  Social  Stat- 
ics almost  everything  is  made  to  turn  upon  the  doctrine 
— previously  hardly  more  than  hinted  at — that  from  the 
very  beginning  of  social  life  down  to  the  present  time 
there  has  been  going  on,  and  that  there  still  is  going  on, 
a  process  of  slow  but  none  the  less  certain  adjustment 
of  the  natures  of  men  to  society,  and  of  the  social  or- 
ganization to  the  natures  of  its  constituent  units :  this 
adjustment  being  the  result  of  a  perpetual  interaction 
between  units  and  aggregate  which  ever  tends  to  bring 
them  into  more  perfect  adaptation  the  one  to  the  other. 
Such  adaptation,  it  is  further  shown,  is  produced  by  the 
direct  action  of  circumstances  upon  the  natures  of  men, 
and  by  the  preservation  and  accumulation  by  inherit- 
ance from  generation  to  generation  of  the  modifications 
thus  initiated;  though  another  process  comes  in  for 
passing  recognition — the  process  of  the  dying  out  of 
those  individuals  who  fail  to  adapt  themselves  to  the 
changing  conditions  of  their  environment :  which  pro- 
cess may  be  conversely  stated  as  the  survival  of  those 
only  who  so  far  change  as  to  fit  themselves  to  the  neces- 
sities imposed  upon  them  by  the  totality  of  their  sur- 
roundings. Here,  it  will  be  seen,  is  a  faint  and  partial 
adumbration  of  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Moreover,  an- 
other important  point  is  emphasized — the  point  that 


44     PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

all  our  social  evils  and  imperfections  are  due  to  want  of 
complete  adjustment  between  men  and  the  conditions  of 
social  life — are,  indeed,  nothing  more  than  the  tempo- 
rary jarring  and  wrenching  of  a  machine  the  parts  of 
which  are  not  yet  brought  into  thorough  working  order. 
Yet,  as  the  process  of  adaptation  is  still  continuing,  and 
is  in  the  nature  of  things  tending  ever  to  produce  be- 
tween units  and  aggregate  a  state  of  more  perfect  equi- 
librium, the  inevitable  if  optimistic  corollary  is,  that  the 
evil  which  we  deplore  will  in  the  end  work  itself  out 
altogether,  and  that  eventually  all  friction  will  entirely 
disappear :  a  prophecy  which  seems  to  point  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  gorgeous  dreams  of  speculators  like  Godwin 
and  Coudorcet,  far  as  the  arguments  upon  which  it  is 
based  are  seen  to  differ  from  their  own.  Finally,  all 
these  special  changes  in  man  and  in  society  are  regarded 
as  phases  only  of  a  process  of  universal  development  or 
unfolding,  which  is  everywhere  conducing,  in  obedience 
to  an  inherent  metaphysical  tendency,  to  the  production 
in  man,  as  throughout  the  whole  of  the  animate  creation, 
of  more  complete  individuation  and  higher  and  higher 
types. 

We  thus  see  that,  unlike  Darwin  and  Wallace,  Mr. 
Spencer  approached  the  question  of  general  evolution 
not  from  the  organic  but  from  the  super-organic  point 
of  view — by  the  way  of  ethical  and  sociological  investi- 
gations. His  first  conception  of  development  was  in  the 
limited  shape  of  progress — of  development,  that  is,  of 
man  individually  and  in  society.  But  Mr.  Spencer's 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  45 

was  not  the  rnind  to  rest  content  with  these  vague  and 
partial  glimpses  of  a  stupendous  truth.  Before  long  he 
began  to  work  his  way  round  through  researches  «f 
quite  a  different  character,  towards  the  affiliation  of  these 
special  and  disjointed  facts  and  inferences  upon  other 
facts  and  inferences  of  wider  sweep  and  meaning. 

His  labours  upon  Social  Statics  had  led  him  up  to  a 
realization  of  the  important  truth  that  beneath  all  the 
much-debated  questions  of  morality  and  society  lie  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  biology  and  psychology ;  and 
that  any  really  scientific  or  efficient  treatment  of  man 
as  a  moral  being  or  social  unit  must  depend  upon  a 
thorough  study  of  the  problems  of  life  and  mind.  Full 
of  these  ideas,  he  turned  with  increased  enthusiasm  to 
biological  and  psychological  studies ;  and  to  the  prose- 
cution of  various  lines  of  research  in  connection  with 
these  two  subjects,  a  large  part,  though  by  no  means 
the  whole,  of  his  energies  was  for  some  time  devoted. 

The  ten  years  which  followed — the  years  between 
1850  and  1860  (it  is  well  to  notice  the  dates,  because,  as 
we  shall  presently  see,  they  have  their  own  importance) 
— were  years  of  great  activity — an  activity  to  be  meas- 
ured not  so  much  by  their  productiveness,  though  that 
was  sufficiently  remarkable,  as  by  the  amazing  growth 
and  organization  of  ideas  which  took  place  in  them. 
During  this  period  some  twenty-five  exhaustive  articles 
from  Spencer's  pen  were  published  in  the  leading 
organs  of  liberal  thought ;  and  in  these  articles,  if  we 
take  them  in  the  order  of  their  appearance,  we  can 


46  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

trace  a  gradual  closing  in  from  all  sides,  as  it  were,  upon 
the  great  generalizations  which  were  by-and-bye  to  fall 
into  their  places  as  integral  parts  of  a  coherent  system 
of  thought.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  years  may  be  re- 
garded, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Synthetic  Phi- 
losophy itself,  as  years  of  special  and  methodical  train- 
ing ;  and  these  essays,  diverse  as  they  are  in  form  and 
matter,  as  separate  and  tentative  contributions  towards 
the  treatment  of  various  isolated  phenomena  which  were 
ultimately  to  be  taken  up  in  their  interrelations  and 
dealt  with  in  the  mass.  It  would  be  impossible  here  to 
subject  these  essays  one  by  one  to  anything  like  close 
analysis,  even  if  it  would  materially  further  our  present 
purpose  to  do  so.  But  a  few  words  must  be  devoted  to 
their  general  drift  and  character;  and,  should  one  or 
two  of  them  be  made  the  subjects  of  special  mention,  it 
will  not  be  because  these  are  to  be  considered  the  most 
important  in  themselves,  but  simply  because  they  are 
the  most  important  for  the  object  which  at  the  moment 
I  have  in  view. 

Probably  the  points  which  would  most  strike  any 
one  reading  these  essays  casually  and  for  the  first  time 
would  be  their  strong  grasp  upon  deep-lying  principles, 
and  their  extraordinary  originality.  On  every  page 
they  reveal,  be  the  subject  what  it  may,  an  astonishing 
independence  of  thought,  and  an  absolute  freedom  from 
all  trace  of  traditional  methods  and  ideas.  It  was  this 
freshness  of  treatment  and  firmness  of  touch  which  per- 
haps most  attracted  the  attention  of  thoughtful  readers 


SPEXCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  4f 

when  they  were  first  published — for  the  most  part 
anonymously — in  the  pages  of  the  various  English 
magazines  and  reviews.  But,  turning  back  to  them  to- 
day and  regarding  them  in  their  mutual  relations  (as 
we  are  able  to  do  now  that  they  have  long  since  been 
available  in  a  collected  and  permanent  form),  we  are 
impressed  by  something  beyond  the  depth,  clearness, 
and  vigour  of  mind  to  which  they  everywhere  bear  wit- 
ness :  and  that  something  is  the  essential  unity  of 
their  thought,  the  oneness  of  idea  which  is  throughout 
seen  to  underlie  and  inform  the  extraordinary  diversity 
of  materials  with  which  they  deal.  It  matters  not 
whether  the  author  is  concerned  with  the  moot  ques- 
tions of  physiology  and  psychology ;  or  with  the  in- 
trinsic principles  of  a  correct  literary  style ;  or  with  the 
changes  of  the  sidereal  system ;  or  with  ill-timed  and 
hasty  political  panaceas ;  or  with  curiosities  of  social 
manners  and  behaviour :  all  these  subjects  are  systemat- 
ically approached  from  one  point  of  view ;  all  are  made 
to  cluster  about  and  find  interpretation  in  one  domi- 
nant hypothesis.  And  what  is  this  hypothesis  ?  What 
is  this  great  cardinal  doctrine  which  is  thus  made  to 
weld  together  subjects  so  diverse  and  even  so  incon- 
gruous that  on  any  merely  superficial  examination  they 
would  never  be  supposed  to  possess  anything  in  com- 
mon ?  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  it  is  the  doctrine  of 
development  or  evolution — a  doctrine  which  manifests 
itself  in  every  essay  with  continually  increasing  dis- 
tinctness, and  which  is  thus  shown  to  be  taking  year 


48  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

after  year  a  stronger  and  stronger  hold  upon  the  au- 
thor's mind  and  a  deeper  and  deeper  place  in  all  his 
speculations. 

As  early  as  the  year  1852  he  had  published  in  a 
periodical  entitled  The  Leader  a  short  but  pithy  paper 
on  The  Development  Hypothesis,  which  was  afterwards 
referred  to  by  Darwin,  in  the  historical  sketch  prefixed 
to  The  Origin  of  Species,  as  presenting  the  general  argu- 
ment for  the  developmental  as  against  the  special-crea- 
tion interpretation  of  the  universe  with  remarkable  co- 
gency and  skill.  But,  while  reasons  were  here  briefly 
but  clearly  stated  for  a  belief  in  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  all  organisms,  not  excluding  man,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  essay  does  not  contain  any  indica- 
tion of  factors  adequate  to  the  production  of  the  alleged 
effects.  One  process  only  is  recognized — the  process  of 
direct  modification  by  the  conditions  of  life;  and  as 
with  this  process  alone  it  is  obviously  impossible  to  ac- 
count for  all  the  facts  of  organic  creation,  the  way  was 
left  open  to  the  uniformitarians  to  make  good  a  tem- 
porary escape. 

But  this  noteworthy  little  paper,  though  it  contained 
a  kind  of  systematized  confession  of  faith,  was  only, 
after  all,  a  starting-point  for  a  long  and  thorough  in- 
vestigation of  various  aspects  of  the  subject  with  which 
it  was  concerned.  Its  leading  ideas,  as  I  have  said, 
came  little  by  little  to  suffuse  all  his  work,  and  in  the 
years  that  followed  they  underwent  consolidation  and 
reached  an  expression  at  once  more  definite  and  more 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  49 

complete.  "Was  it  a  question  of  deducing  a  theory  of 
population  from  the  general  law  of  animal  fertility? 
Then  we  find  distinct  recognition  of  an  advance  from 
lower  to  higher  brought  about  by  excessive  reproduc- 
tion and  the  continual  pressure  of  rapidly-multiplying 
organisms  upon  the  slowly-increasing  means  of  support 
(a  statement  in  regard  to  which  we  shall  have  a  word 
to  say  further  on).  Did  the  discussion  turn  upon  the 
elaboration  on  a  scientific  basis  of  a  true  philosophy  of 
style  ?  Then,  along  with  the  application  to  the  special 
phenomena  of  expression  of  the  general  law  of  "  the  line 
of  least  resistance,"  there  is  further  reached  the  general- 
ization— set  down  as  applying  to  all  products  both  of 
man  and  of  Xature — of  those  two  fundamental  processes 
of  evolution — the  process  of  differentiation  and  the 
process  of  integration ;  since  it  is  shown  that  a  highly- 
developed  style  "  will  be,  not  a  series  of  like  parts  simply 
placed  in  juxtaposition,  but  one  whole  made  up  of  unlike 
parts  that  are  mutually  dependent."  *  Are  the  right 
and  wrong  objects  and  methods  of  education  brought 
up  for  consideration  ?  Then  the  answer  given  is  firmly 
established  upon  the  doctrine  of  a  gradual  unfolding  of 
the  mental  faculties  in  obedience  to  natural  law,  the 
unfolding  taking  the  form  of  a  double-sided  change 
from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  and  from  the  indefinite 
to  the  definite.  So  is  it  with  all  other  subjects  whatso- 


*  The  Philosophy  of  Style.    First  published  in  the  Westminster 
Review,  October,  1852. 


50  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

ever.  In  the  essay  on  Manners  and  Fashion,  for  ex- 
ample, emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  truths  that  the  various 
forms  of  restraint  exercised  by  society  as  an  aggregate 
over  its  individual  members — such  restraints  being  now 
clearly  differentiated  into  ecclesiastical,  political,  and 
ceremonial — are  all  natural  developments  from  one  pri- 
mordial form,  and  that  the  divergence  of  each  from  the 
others  and  of  all  from  such  primordial  form  takes  place 
"  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  evolution  of  all  organ- 
ized bodies."  And  once  again  a  similar  line  of  argu- 
ment is  followed  out  in  the  extremely  attractive  articles 
on  the  Genesis  of  Science  and  the  Origin  and  function 
of  Music.  Finally,  in  the  elaborate  essay  on  Progress : 
Its  Law  and  Cause,  evolutionary  principles  are  enun- 
ciated with  the  utmost  distinctness.  The  law  of  prog- 
ress is  shown  to  consist  in  the  transformation  of  the 
homogeneous  into  the  heterogeneous  (a  partial  state- 
ment afterwards  completed  by  the  addition  of  a  factor 
for  the  time  being  overlooked  *) ;  and  this  process  is 
illustrated  by  examples  taken  from  all  orders  of  phe- 
nomena, while  the  cause  of  the  transformation  is  found 
in  the  law  of  the  multiplication  of  effects,  afterwards 
brought  out  more  fully  in  First  Principles.  In  this 
essay,  too,  as  in  that  on  the  Development  Hypothesis, 
the  general  law  of  evolution  is  presented  as  holding 


*  This  additional  factor  being,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in- 
crease in  coherence.  A  change  must  consist  in  increasing  heter- 
ogeneity and  increasing  coherence,  to  constitute  evolution. 


SPEXCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  51 

good  in  the  production  of  species  and  varieties,  though 
here  again  -direct  adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  exist- 
ence is  the  only  factor  recognized  as  playing  a  part  in 
the  stupendous  drama  of  unfolding  life. 

I  have  said  enough,  I  think,  to  show  how  active  was 
the  period  with  which  we  have  just  been  dealing — ac- 
tive alike  in  original  production  and  in  the  absorption 
of  fresh  material  and  the  organization  of  new  ideas. 
But  the  enumeration  of  these  five-and-twenty  essays 
does  not  exhaust  the  record  of  Spencer's  labours  during 
this  time.  His  studies  in  psychology,  of  which  the 
essays  on  The  Universal  Postulate  (1853)  and  The  Art 
of  Education  (1854)  were  the  immediate  results,  took 
more  systematic  form  about  the  date  of  the  publication 
of  the  latter  paper  ;  and  in  1855  the  first  edition  of  his 
Principles  of  Psychology  made  its  appearance.  As  this 
work  was  subsequently  included  as  a  portion  of  the  two 
volumes  on  the  Principles  of  Psychology  in  the  Syn- 
thetic system,  any  analysis  of  its  contents  does  not  fall 
within  the  scope  of  the  present  chapter.  Two  remarks 
may,  however,  be  appropriately  made  in  the  present 
connection  ere  we  pass  on.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  well 
that  we  should  remind  ourselves  how  enormously  this 
book  was  in  advance  of  the  whole  thought  of  the  time 
— not  the  common  thought  only,  but  the  cultivated 
thought  as  well.*  It  was  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the 

*  How  true  this  was,  may  be  strikingly  shown  by  a  considera- 
tion of  the  attitude  taken  up  towards  the  evolutionary  psychol- 
ogy by  John  Stuart  Mill.  The  bias  of  this  distinguished  thinker 


52  PHILOSOPHY  OP   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

term  an  epoch-making  book — epoch-making  because  it 
placed  the  study  of  mind,  theretofore  in  the  hands  of 
the  metaphysicians  as  sterile  a  subject  as  it  had  proved 
in  the  days  of  mediaeval  scholasticism,  upon  an  entirely 
new  and  promisingly  fertile  basis.  Hitherto,  mental 
philosophy  had  concerned  itself  only  with  the  facts  of 
adult  human  consciousness.  Spencer,  realizing  as  we  are 
now  all  able  to  realize  how  little  could  ever  be  accom- 
plished by  this  time-worn  and  superficial  method,  broke 
away  from  all  the  traditions  of  the  schools,  and  started 
out  on  an  original  investigation  of  the  phenomena  of 
mind,  in  the  wide  sweep  of  which  he  took  in  not  only 
the  mental  growth  of  children  and  savages,  but  also  the 
phenomena  of  intelligence  as  displayed  by  the  whole 
range  of  the  animate  world  down  to  the  lowest  crea- 
tures. To  quote  his  own  words,  "  Life  in  its  multitudi- 

in  favour  of  the  experiential  philosophy  was  so  strong  that  he 
hesitated  to  accept  the  compromise  which  the  developmental  view 
offered  to  effect  between  the  special  doctrines  of  his  own  school  of 
pure  empiricism  and  those  of  the  intuitionists.  Yet  he  came  at 
length  to  recognize  how  large  a  step  in  advance  the  evolutionists 
had  really  made.  Dr.  Carpenter,  referring  to  Mill's  gradual  change 
of  front,  quotes  a  portion  of  a  letter  addressed  to  him  on  the  sub- 
ject by  Mill  himself,  part  of  which  runs  as  follows :  "  There  is 
also  considerable  evidence  that  such  acquired  facilities  of  passing 
into  certain  modes  of  cerebral  action  can  in  many  cases  be  trans- 
mitted more  or  less  completely  by  inheritance.  The  limits  of 
this  transmission  and  the  conditions  on  which  it  depends  are  a 
subject  now  fairly  before  the  scientific  world  ;  and  we  shall 
doubtless  in  time  know  much  more  about  them  than  we  do  now. 
But  so  far  as  my  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  subject  extends,  I 
take  much  the  same  view  of  it  that  you  do,  at  least  in  principle." 
— See  Carpenter's  Principles  of  Mental  Physiology. 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  53 

nous  and  infinitely  varied  embodiments  has  arisen  out 
of  the  lowest  and  simplest  beginnings  by  steps  as  grad- 
ual as  those  which  evolved  an  homogenous  germ  into 
a  complete  organism."  Starting  from  this  conception, 
the  author  proceeds  to  treat  of  the  whole  subject  of  in- 
telligence and  its  forms  of  manifestation  from  an  evolu- 
tionary point  of  view ;  the  Principles  having  "  for  their 
object  the  establishment,  by  a  double  process  of  analysis 
and  of  synthesis,  the  unity  of  composition  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  mind,  and  the  continuity  of  their  develop- 
ment." *  My  second  remark  is  purely  a  personal  one, 
yet  one  which  has  its  interest  and  importance — though 
these  are  of  a  somewhat  melancholy  character — in  any 
account  of  Mr.  Spencer's  earlier  writings.  It  was  in 
consequence  of  overwork,  while  producing  the  volume 
now  referred  to,  that  Mr.  Spencer  suffered  the  nervous 
breakdown  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  and  under 
the  burden  of  which  all  his  subsequent  great  work  has 
been  done. 

It  is  not,  I  think,  needful  to  pause,  after  even  such  a 
rapid  summary  of  the  activities  of  these  ten  momentous 
years,  to  say  anything  about  the  extraordinary  perver- 
sion of  judgment  which  has  led  critics  from  whom, 
having  regard  to  their  position  and  general  culture, 
something  better  was  to  have  been  expected,  to  treat 
these  writings  as  "  stock-writings,"  and  to  refer  to  their 
author  as  having  "  the  weakness  of  omniscience  "  and  a 


Th.  Ribot,  English  Psychology,  p,  148,  London,  1873. 
5 


54:  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

desire  to  discourse  on  a  great  diversity  of  subjects,  from 
the  nebular  hypothesis  to  music  and  dancing.  We  are 
now,  I  believe,  in  a  fair  position  to  realize  how  much, 
or  rather  how  little,  these  curiosities  of  oracular  criti- 
cism are  really  worth.  So  far  from  Mr.  Spencer's  vari- 
ous essays  during  this  epoch  being  merely  examples 
of  flippant  journalistic  versatility  (as  such  estimates  as 
we  have  spoken  of  would  imply),  we  have  seen  how 
they  are  united  and  held  together  by  that  thread  of 
common  principle  and  common  purpose  which  runs 
through  them  all.  Kandom  and  unrelated  as  they  may 
appear  to  superficial  or  careless  readers,  they  may, 
broadly  speaking,  be  regarded  as  separate  and  method- 
ical studies  in  preparation  for  a  complete  working  out 
in  general  and  in  detail  of  the  doctrine  of  universal 
evolution. 

And  now,  why  have  I  devoted  so  large  a  portion  of 
the  present  chapter  to  the  consideration  and  analysis 
of  these  earlier,  more  miscellaneous,  and,  as  it  might 
seem,  less  important  of  Mr.  Spencer's  writings  ?  Pass- 
ing over  the  fact  that  in  the  merest  sketch  of  the 
growth  and  development  of  such  a  mind  as  his  we  are 
presented  with  a  study  of  which  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
overrate  either  the  interest  or  the  value,  I  may  say  that 
I  had  hopes  of  achieving  two  objects  by  following  the 
present  course.  In  the  first  place,  by  thus  making  our- 
selves to  some  extent  acquainted  with  the  progression 
and  consolidation  of  Spencer's  thought,  we  have,  I 
believe,  very  materially  aided  in  fitting  ourselves  for  the 


SPEXCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  55 

study  of  those  ideas  in  the  full  and  highly  developed 
forms  in  which  they  appear  in  the  pages  of  the  Synthet- 
tic  Philosophy  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  by  travel- 
ling together  over  this  preparatory  ground,  as  we  have 
done,  that  we  have  been  enabled  to  reach  a  vantage- 
point  from  which  I  trust  it  will  now  be  easy  for  us  to 
take  such  a  survey  of  the  general  field  as  will  help  us 
to  appreciate  with  some  degree  of  accuracy  the  real  rela- 
tion of  Herbert  Spencer  to  the  great  modern  doctrine 
of  evolution. 

And  this  is  a  question  upon  which  I  would  fain 
make  myself  particularly  clear,  because  it  is  one  in  ref- 
erence to  which  there  has  long  been  and  is  still  current 
an  enormous  amount  of  misconception,  not  only  among 
the  mass  of  men  and  women  (which  under  the  circum- 
stances would  be  only  natural),  but  also,  and  as  it  seems 
a  little  strangely,  among  even  the  thoughtful  and  gener- 
ally well  informed.  A  vagueness  and  instability  in  the 
meaning  of  certain  words  in  common  use  has  been  in 
this  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  a  main  cause  of  confusion 
in  ideas ;  another  instance  being  thus  furnished  of  the 
truth  of  Lord  Bacon's  dictum  that,  while  we  fondly  sup- 
pose that  we  govern  our  vocabulary,  it  not  infrequently 
happens  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  our  vocabulary  gov- 
erns us.  In  the  common  speech  of  the  day  the  word 
Darwinism  is  almost  invariably  employed  as  if  it  were 
absolutely  synonymous  with  the  word  evolution ;  the 
one  is  treated  as  being  at  all  points  not  only  coexten- 
sive but  also  cointensive  with  the  other.  Two  note- 


56  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

worthy  results  of  this  indiscrimination  are  :  first,  that 
Darwin  is  habitually  regarded  as  the  author  of  the 
modern  doctrine  of  evolution  at  large ;  and,  secondly, 
that  this  doctrine  has,  ever  since  the  publication  of  his 
great  work  on  the  Origin  of  Species,  become  so  inti- 
mately bound  up  with  the  special  views  therein  con- 
tained, that  by  the  correctness  or  incorrectness  of  those 
special  views  the  whole  theory  of  evolution  is  supposed 
to  stand  or  fall. 

That  this  confusion,  like  all  such  confusions,  has 
been  fraught  with  many  and  varied  philosophic  draw- 
backs and  dangers  is  a  point  which  we  need  not  here 
pause  to  emphasize  ;  such  drawbacks  and  dangers  must 
be  sufficiently  patent  to  all.  Here  we  are  principally 
concerned  with  the  entirely  unjust  and  erroneous  es- 
timate of  the  historical  significance  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
work,  and  consequently  of  the  relations  of  Mr.  Spencer 
himself  to  the  greatest  of  modern  generalizations,  which 
originated  from  or  which  at  least  has  been  largely  kept 
alive  by  the  misconception  of  which  I  speak. 

To  what  extent  this  unjust  and  erroneous  estimate 
has  taken  root,  even  in  more  cultivated  thought,  may  be 
shown  briefly  and  conclusively  by  one  or  two  quotations. 
For  example,  we  find  the  London  Saturday  Review  re- 
marking, in  the  course  of  an  article  on  the  late  Prof. 
Tyndall's  famous  Belfast  address,  now  some  twenty  years 
ago,  that "  what  Darwin  has  done  for  physiology  [!]  Spen- 
cer would  do  for  psychology,  by  applying  to  the  nervous 
system  particularly  the  principles  which  his  teacher  had 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  57 

already  enunciated  for  the  physical  system  generally." 
In  much  the  same  strain,  and  obviously  under  the  same 
impression  that  Mr.  Spencer's  ideas  were  all  obtained  at 
second  hand,*  a  gentleman  whom  we  are  sorry  to  de- 
tect in  such  carelessness — Colonel  Higginson — writes, 
"  It  seems  rather  absurd  to  attribute  to  him  [Mr.  Spen- 
cer] as  a  scientific  achievement  any  vast  enlargement  or 
further  generalization  of  the  modern  scientific  doctrine 
of  evolution."  Once  more,  sketching  out  the  college 
life  of  his  friend,  the  late  lamented  Prof.  Clifford,  with 
whose  untimely  death  so  many  brilliant  promises  came 
to  naught,  Mr.  Frederick  Pollock  says,  "  Meanwhile,  he 
[Mr.  Clifford]  was  eagerly  assimilating  the  ideas  which 
had  become  established  as  an  assured  possession  of 
science  by  Mr.  Darwin,  and  were  being  applied  to  the 
systematic  grouping  and  gathering  together  of  human 
knowledge  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer."  And,  finally  (not 
to  weary  by  needlessly  multiplying  quotations),  a  man 
whose  name  is  of  infinitely  greater  weight  in  the  world 
of  philosophy  and  of  letters  than  that  of  the  pert  critic 


*  There  has  perhaps  never  been  so  original  a  thinker  as  Mr. 
Spencer  who  has  had  such  a  hard  struggle  to  get  or  keep  posses- 
sion of  the  credit  due  to  his  own  ideas.  Not  only  is  he  thus  re- 
duced to  the  position  of  a  mere  aide-de-camp  of  Darwin,  but 
many  of  his  critics  are  never  weary  in  insisting,  spite  of  all  dis- 
proof of  their  assertions,  upon  his  vital  indebtedness  to  Augusts 
Comte.  The  singularly  distorted  current  ideas  of  his  general  re- 
lation to  evolution,  above  animadverted  upon,  may  be  partly  the 
results  of  the  anonymity  of  his  earlier  publications ;  and  all  wrong- 
headedness  is  marvellouslv  tenacious  of  life. 


58  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  the  Saturday  Review,  or  the  gallant  American  colo- 
nel, or  the  well-known  English  lawyer — a  man  from 
whom,  on  account  of  his  own  contributions  to  the  study 
of  psychology  and  of  his  wide  and  deep  knowledge  of 
England  and  English  thought,  a  more  correct  judg- 
ment might  have  been  looked  for — I  mean  the  late  M. 
Taine — has  thus  summed  up  his  view  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
work  :  "  Mr.  Spencer  possesses  the  rare  merit  of  having 
extended  to  the  sum  of  phenomena — to  the  whole  his- 
tory of  Nature  and  of  mind— the  two  master- thoughts 
which  for  the  past  thirty  years  have  been  giving  new 
form  to  the  positive  sciences ;  the  one  being  Mayer  and 
Joule's  Conservation  of  Energy,  the  other  Darwin's 
Natural  Selection." 

Now,  all  this,  to  the  extent  to  which  expressly  or 
by  implication  it  relegates  to  Mr.  Spencer  merely  the 
labours  of  an  adapter,  enlarger,  or  popularizer  of  other 
men's  thoughts,  is  entirely  false  and  unfounded — ludi- 
crously false  and  unfounded,  as  the  general  survey  of 
Mr.  Spencer's  writings  which  we  have  just  taken  shows 
beyond  the  faintest  shadow  of  a  doubt.  So  far  from 
its  seeming  "  rather  absurd  "  to  credit  to  Mr.  Spencer 
any  great  personal  contribution  to  the  formulation  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution ;  so  far  from  his  being  in 
any  sense  of  the  term  a  pupil  or  unattached  follower 
of  Darwin,  we  have  seen  that  he  had  worked  his  own 
way  independently,  from  a  different  starting-point  and 
through  an  entirely  dissimilar  course  of  investigation, 
to  a  conception  of  evolution  as  a  universal  process  un- 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  59 

derlying  all  phenomena  whatsoever,  before  Darwin  him- 
self had  made  public  his  special  study  of  the  operation 
of  one  of  the  factors  of  evolution  in  the  limited  sphere 
of  the  organic  world.  A  simple  comparison  of  dates 
will  serve  to  make  this  point  sufficiently  clear.  The 
first  edition  of  the  Origin  of  Species  was  published  in 
the  latter  part  of  1859.  The  essay  on  the  Development 
Hypothesis  appeared  in  1852 ;  in  1855 — or  four  years 
before  the  advent  of  Darwin's  book — there  came  the 
first  edition  of  the  Principles  of  Psychology,  in  which 
the  laws  of  evolution  (already  conceived  as  universal) 
were  traced  out  in  their  operations  in  the  domain  of 
mind ;  and  this  was  followed  in  1857  by  the  essay  on 
Progress :  Its  Law  and  Cause,  which  contains  a  state- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  in  its  chief  outlines, 
and  an  inductive  and  deductive  development  of  that 
doctrine  in  its  application  to  all  classes  of  phenomena. 
Spencer's  independence  of  Darwin  is  thus  placed  be- 
yond possibility  of  question. 

Let  it  not  for  a  moment  be  imagined  that  I  am  en- 
deavouring in  the  slightest  degree  to  underestimate  the 
special  value  or  importance  of  Darwin's  magnificent 
work.  Yielding  him  the  fullest  meed  of  praise  for  the 
great  part  which  he  undoubtedly  played  in  the  develop- 
ment of  scientific  thought,  I  am  aiming  only  to  show, 
as  can  so  easily  be  shown,  and  as  simple  justice  requires 
to  be  shown,  that  it  is  altogether  an  exaggeration  to 
speak  of  him  as  the  father  of  the  modern  doctrine  of 
evolution.  What  Darwin  did  was  to  amass  an  enor- 


60  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

mous  number  of  facts  from  almost  every  department  of 
biological  science,  and  by  the  devoted  labour,  patient 
examination,  and  long-searching  thought  of  many  stu- 
dious years,  to  establish,  once  and  for  all,  not  the  reality 
of  evolution,  nor  even  the  laws  and  conditions  of  evo- 
lution, but  the  operation  of  one  of  the  main  factors  of 
evolution — a  factor  which,  though  it  had  till  his  time 
entirely  eluded  the  scientific  mind,  was  yet  required 
to  render  comprehensible  a  vast  array  of  phenomena 
otherwise  without  interpretation.  How  near  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's own  investigations  had  led  him  to  a  realization  of 
the  process  of  natural  selection,  or,  as  he  afterwards 
called  it,  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  we  have  already  been  able  to  remark ;  and  he 
himself  took  occasion  to  point  this  out,  when  in  the 
course  of  his  later  work  he  came  to  deal  more  systemat- 
ically with  the  whole  problem  of  animal  fertility  and  its 
practical  implications.*  But  the  factors  mainly  relied 


*  See  Principles  of  Biology,  vol.  ii,  p.  500.  The  whole  of  this 
very '.interesting  note  should  be  studied  carefully,  not  only  be- 
cause it  makes  clear  the  scientific  relations  of  Spencer  and  Dar- 
win, but  also  for  the  foreshadowing  which  it  contains  of  a  reaction 
against  that  exclusive  recognition  of  natural  selection  which  soon 
became  typical  of  biological  students  at  large.  The  fundamental 
fact  of  evolution  being  now  universally  accepted,  scientists  of  the 
present  day  are  divided  into  two  hostile  camps  upon  the  question 
of  the  processes  of  evolution :  one  party,  often  described  as  the 
neo-Darwinian,  holding  to  natural  selection  and  to  that  alone ;  the 
other,  antithetically  called  the  neo-Lamarckian,  maintaining  that 
other  factors  have  to  be  taken  into  account.  The  controversy, 
which  mainly  turns  upon  the  problem  as  to  whether  or  not  ac- 


SPENCER'S  EARLIER  WORK.  61 

upon  by  him,  in  common  with  all  pre-Darwinian  de- 
velopmentalists,  were  the  direct  action  of  the  environ- 
ment and  the  inheritance,  with  increase,  of  functionally- 
produced  modifications ;  and  as  these  processes,  what- 
ever might  be  their  individual  importance,  were  obvi- 
ously incapable  of  throwing  light  upon  a  large  part — 
perhaps  the  larger  part — of  the  facts  which  pressed  for 
explanation,  the  theory  of  evolution  could  not  for  the 
time  being  hope  for  inductive  establishment.  Darwin's 
book  put  the  whole  question  upon  a  new  foundation,  by 
exhibiting  a  process  which  did  account  for  the  hitherto 
unmanageable  facts ;  and  undoubtedly  it  was  thus  to  a 
large  extent  effectual  in  bringing  the  general  theory 
into  open  court  as  an  entertainable  hypothesis.  But 
while  all  this  is  freely  conceded — while  the  greatness 
of  Darwin's  work  in  itself,  and  its  importance  as  a  con- 
tribution to  scientific  thought,  are  acknowledged  with- 


quired  characteristics  are  inheritable,  is  now  for  the  most  part 
immediately  connected  with  the  writings  of  Prof.  Weismann,  in 
which  an  elaborate  attempt  is  made  to  prove  that,  of  all  alleged 
evolutionary  factors,  natural  selection  is  alone  demanded  by  facts 
and  supported  by  evidence.  Mr.  Spencer  has  himself  remained 
firm  to  the  position  adopted  in  the  note  above  referred  to,  his  con- 
tributions to  the  discussion  being  the  essays  on  The  Factors  of 
Organic  Evolution  (1886) ;  A  Counter-Criticism  (1888) ;  The  Inade- 
quacy of  Natural  Selection  (1893) ;  and  A  Rejoinder  to  Professor 
Weismann  (1893).  The  whole  biological  and  philosophical  world 
realizes  that  it  is  now  indeed  passing  through  a  crisis  unparalleled 
since  that  brought  about  by  the  publication  of  Darwin's  book 
itself;  for  in  view  of  its  many-sided  importance  the  question  is 
one  which,  as  Mr.  Spencer  has  said,  beyond  all  others  demands  the 
attention  of  scientific  men. 


62  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

out  hesitation,  it  has  still  to  be  remembered  that  that 
work  was  special  and  limited  in  character,  and  that 
with  the  general  doctrine  of  evolution  at  large  it  had 
itself  nothing  whatever  to  do.  The  laws  of  evolution  as 
a  universal  process — a  matter  which  the  aims  and  ob- 
jects of  Darwin's  work  did  not  lead  him  to  touch — were 
worked  out  by  Mr.  Spencer  quite  irrespectively  of  the 
special  process  of  natural  selection ;  and  when  Darwin's 
book  appeared,  that  process  fell  into  its  place  in  Spen- 
cer's general  system,  quite  naturally,  as  a  supplementary 
and  not  in  any  way  as  a  disturbing  element.  Thus  it 
appears  that  if  any  one  man  is  to  be  looked  upon  as  the 
immediate  progenitor  of  a  doctrine  which,  in  common 
phraseology,  may  be  said  to  have  been  to  some  extent  in 
the  air — a  "  truth  of  science,  waiting  to  be  caught  "- 
that  man  is  not  he  who  first  elucidated  one  factor  of  its 
process  in  one  domain  of  phenomena — the  biological; 
but  rather  he  who  first  seized  upon  it  as  a  universal  law, 
underlying  all  the  phenomena  of  creation.  In  a  word, 
it  is  not  Charles  Darwin,  but  Herbert  Spencer. 

We  have  thus  followed  the  general  course  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  thought  through  what,  in  the  light  of  his 
subsequent  work,  must  be  regarded  as  the  period  of 
experiment  and  preparation.  We  now  turn  from  these 
earlier  writings  to  that  colossal  undertaking  to  which 
the  greater  part  of  the  energies  of  his  after-life  was  to  be 
devoted — the  System  of  Synthetic  Philosophy. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   SYNTHETIC    PHILOSOPHY — THE    PRINCIPLES   OF 
BIOLOGY   AND   OF   PSYCHOLOGY. 

I. 

EARLY  in  the  course  of  the  composition  of  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Psychology  in  their  original  form — that  is,  in 
1854 — Mr.  Spencer  had  reached  that  conception  of  evo- 
lution as  a  universal  process  which  he  subsequently 
worked  out  in  detail  in  the  essay  on  Progress  :  Its  Laws 
and  Cause.  The  writing  of  this  article,  which  first  saw 
the  light  in  the  pages  of  the  Westminster  Review,  in 
April,  1857,  doubtless  helped  in  large  measure  to  sys- 
tematize and  co-ordinate  the  various  ideas  that  were 
then  fermenting  in  his  mind.  It  was  in  the  following 
year,  while  he  was  engaged  in  preparing  a  long  essay  in 
defence  of  the  Nebular  Hypothesis,  that  there  dawned 
upon  him  the  possibility  of  dealing  in  a  more  method- 
ical and  connected  manner  than  he  had  hitherto  found 
practicable  with  those  foundation-principles  of  evolu- 
tion to  which  he  had  been  led  by  the  miscellaneous 
studies  of  the  past  eight  or  nine  years.  Instead  of 


64:  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

treating  the  diverse  phenomena  of  life  and  society  in 
disjointed  fragments,  why  should  he  not  consider  them 
after  some  orderly  plan  and  in  their  mutual  relation- 
ships? The  germ  of  thought,  thus  implanted,  forth- 
with began  to  develop  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  and 
before  long  assumed  the  proportions  of  an  elaborate 
scheme,  in  which  all  orders  of  concrete  phenomena 
were  to  fall  into  their  places  as  illustrations  of  the  fun- 
damental process  of  evolution.  Thus  the  conception  of 
evolution  now  presented  itself  to  him  as  the  basis  of  a 
system  of  thought  under  which  was  to  be  generalized 
the  complete  history  of  the  knowable  universe,  and  by 
virtue  of  which  all  branches  of  scientific  knowledge 
were  to  be  unified  by  affiliation  upon  the  primal  laws 
underlying  them  all.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy. 

Though  a  rough  sketch  of  the  main  outlines  of  the 
system  as  they  occurred  to  him  at  the  time,  was  mapped 
out  almost  immediately,  it  was  not  till  the  following 
year,  1859 — a  year  otherwise  made  memorable  by  the 
publication  of  Darwin's  book — that  a  detailed  plan  of 
the  various  connected  works  in  which  these  conceptions 
were  to  be  developed  was  finally  drawn  up ;  and  not 
till  March,  1860,  that  it  was  given  to  the  small  handful 
of  readers  interested  in  such  matters  in  the  form  of  a 
prospectus.  Mr.  Spencer's  original  intention  was  to 
issue  the  proposed  work  to  subscribers,  in  periodical 
parts.  This  course  was  persevered  in  till  the  publica- 
tion of  the  forty-fourth  division,  in  1876,  completing  the 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  65 

first  volume  of  the  Principles  of  Sociology.  It  was 
then  discontinued,  and  since  that  date,  the  publication 
has  been  made  in  volume  form  only. 

The  following  is  a  reprint,  slightly  condensed  by  the 
omission  of  some  explanatory  matter  not  now  of  any 
special  interest,  of  the  programme  as  originally  given  to 
the  world. 

FIRST  PRINCIPLES. 

PART  I.  The  Unknowable.  Carrying  a  step  fur- 
ther the  doctrine  put  into  shape  by  Hamilton  and  Han- 
sel ;  pointing  out  the  various  directions  in  which  sci- 
ence leads  to  the  same  conclusions ;  and  showing  that 
in  this  united  belief  in  an  Absolute  that  transcends  not 
only  human  knowledge  but  human  conception,  lies  the 
only  possible  reconciliation  of  Science  and  Eeligion. 

II.  Laws  of  the  Knowable.  A  statement  of  the 
ultimate  principles  discernible  throughout  all  manifes- 
tations of  the  Absolute — those  highest  generalizations 
now  being  disclosed  by  Science  which  are  severally  true 
not  of  one  class  of  phenomena  but  of  all  classes  of  phe- 
nomena ;  and  which  are  thus  the  keys  to  all  classes  of 
phenomena. 

[In  logical  order  should  here  come  the  application 
of  these  First  Principles  to  Inorganic  Nature.  But  this 
great  division  it  is  proposed  to  pass  over:  partly  be- 
cause, even  without  it,  the  scheme  is  too  extensive ; 
partly  because  the  interpretation  of  Organic  Nature 
after  the  proposed  method,  is  of  more  immediate  im- 


66  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

portance.     The  second  work  of  the  series  will  therefore 
be-] 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  BIOLOGY. 
Vol.  I. 

PART  I.  The  Data  of  Biology.  Including  those 
general  truths  of  physics  and  chemistry  with  which 
rational  biology  must  set  out. 

II.  The  Inductions  of   Biology.     A  statement  of 
the  leading  generalizations  which  naturalists,  physiolo- 
gists, and  comparative  anatomists  have  established. 

III.  The  Evolution  of  Life.     Concerning  the  spec- 
ulation commonly  known  as  the  Development  Hypoth- 
esis— its  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  evidences. 

Vol.  II. 

IV.  Morphological  Development.    Pointing  out  the 
relations  that  are  everywhere  traceable  between  organic 
forms  and  the  average  of  the  various  forces  to  which 
they  are  subject ;  and  seeking  in  the  cumulative  effects 
of  such  forces  a  theory  of  the  forms. 

V.  Physiological   Development.      The  progressive 
differentiation  of  functions  similarly  traced ;  and  simi- 
larly interpreted  as  consequent  upon  the  exposure  of 
different  parts  of  organisms  to  different  sets  of  con- 
ditions. 

VI.  The  Laws  of  Multiplication.     Generalizations 
respecting   the   rates  of   reproduction  of  the  various 
classes  of  plants  and  animals;  followed  by  an  attempt 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  67 

to  show  the  dependence  of  these  variations  upon  certain 
necessary  causes. 

THE  PKIXCIPLES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY. 
Vol.  I. 

PAKT  I.  The  Data  of  Psychology.  Treating  of  the 
general  connections  of  mind  and  life,  and  their  relations 
to  other  modes  of  the  Unknowable. 

II.  The  Inductions  of   Psychology.     A  digest  of 
such  generalizations  respecting  mental  phenomena  as 
have  already  been  empirically  established. 

III.  General  Synthesis.     A  republication,  with  ad- 
ditional chapters,  of  the  same  part  in  the  already  pub- 
lished Principles  of  Psychology. 

IV.  Special  Synthesis.     A  republication,  with  ex- 
tensive revisions  and  additions,  of  the  same  part. 

V.  Physical  Synthesis.     An  attempt  to  show  the 
manner  in  which  the  succession  of  states  of  conscious- 
ness conforms  to  a  certain  fundamental  law  of  nervous 
action  that  follows  from  the  first  principles  laid  down 
at  the  outset. 

Vol.  II. 

VI.  Special   Analysis.     As   at  present    published, 
but  further  elaborated  by  some  additional  chapters. 

VII.  General  Analysis.     As  at  present  published, 
with  several  explanations  and  additions. 

VIII.  Corollaries.     Consisting  in  part  of  a  number 


68  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  derivative  principles  which  form  a  necessary  intro- 
duction to  sociology. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY. 
Vol.  I. 

PART  I.  The  Data  of  Sociology.  A  statement  of 
the  several  sets  of  factors  entering  into  social  phe- 
nomena— human  ideas  and  feelings  considered  in  their 
necessary  order  of  evolution ;  surrounding  natural  con- 
ditions; and  those  ever-complicating  conditions  to 
which  society  itself  gives  origin. 

II.  The   Inductions  of   Sociology.     General  facts, 
structural  and  functional,  as  gathered  from  a  survey  of 
societies  and  their  changes ;  in  other  words,  the  empir- 
ical generalizations  that  are  arrived  at  by  comparing 
different  societies  and   successive  phases  of  the  same 
society. 

III.  Political  Organization.     The  evolution  of  gov- 
ernments, general  and  local,  as  determined  by  natural 
causes;  their  several  types  and  metamorphoses;  their 
increasing  complexity  and  specialization;  and  the  pro- 
gressive limitation  of  their  functions. 

Vol.  II. 

IV.  Ecclesiastical  Organization.     Tracing  the  dif- 
ferentiation of  religious  government  from  secular;  its 
successive    complications    and    the    multiplication    of 
sects;  the  growth  and  continued  modification  of  reli- 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  69 

gions  ideas,  as  caused  by  advancing  knowledge  and 
changing  moral  character;  and  the  gradual  reconcilia- 
tion of  these  ideas  with  the  truths  of  abstract  science. 

V.  Ceremonial  Organization.     The  natural  history 
of  that  third  kind  of  government  which,  having  a  com- 
mon root  with  the  others,  and  slowly  becoming  separate 
from  and  supplementary  to  them,  serves  to  regulate  the 
minor  actions  of  life.* 

VI.  Industrial  Organization.    The  development  of 
productive  and  distributive  agencies  considered,  like  the 
foregoing,  in  its  necessary  causes;  comprehending  not 
only  the  progressive  division  of  labour  and  the  increas- 
ing complexity  of  each  industrial  agency,  but  also  the 
successive  forms  of  industrial  government  as  passing 
through  like  phases  with  political  government,  f 

*  In  their  published  form  these  three  divisions  are  entitled 
respectively:   Political  Institutions;   Ecclesiastical   Institutions; 
Ceremonial  Institutions ;  and  the  last  named  is  properly  made  to 
take  precedence  of  the  other  two.   A  part  on  Domestic  Institutions 
is  inserted  (as  Part  III)  after  the  Inductions,  and  this  of  course 
disturbs  the  subsequent  numbering  of  the  divisions,  as  well  as,  to 
some  extent,  the  volume  arrangement. 

*  This  division,  and  the  whole  of  Vol.  Ill,  were-  skipped  by 
31r.  Spencer  when  he  decided  at  all  hazards  to  push  on  with  the 
closing  volumes  on  Ethics ;  and  they  remain  unpublished  to-day. 
Now  that  the  Principles  of  Ethics  is  completed,  Mr.  Spencer 
will  presumably  return  to  those  omitted  parts  and  take  them  up 
in  the  order  given.    I  remember  a  close  personal  friend  and  con- 
sistent admirer  of  Mr.  Spencer  remarking  to  me  some  few  years 
ago  that  she  almost  wished  that  he  would  never  undertake  to  han- 
dle some  of  the  subjects  specified  in  the  above-outlined  third  vol- 
ume, inasmuch  as  his  special  preparation  could  hardly  be  held  to 
fit  him  for  thorough  treatment  of  such  a  topic,  for  instance,  as 

6 


TO  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Vol.  III. 

VII.  Lingual    Progress.     The    evolution    of    lan- 
guages regarded  as  a  psychological  process  determined 
by  social  conditions. 

VIII.  Intellectual    Progress.     Treated    from    the 
same  point  of  view :   including  the  growth  of  classifi- 
cations ;  the  evolution  of  science  out  of  common  knowl- 
edge ;  the  advance  from  qualitative  to  quantitative  pre- 
vision, from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite,  and  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract. 

IX.  ^Esthetic    Progress.     The    fine   arts  similarly 
dealt  with:  tracing  their  gradual  differentiation  from 
primitive  institutions  and  from  each  other;  their  in- 
creasing varieties  of  development ;  and  their  advance  in 
reality  of  expression  and  superiority  of  aim. 

X.  Moral  Progress.     Exhibiting  the  genesis  of  the 
slow  emotional  modifications  which  human  nature  un- 
dergoes in  its  adaptation  to  the  social  state. 

Linguistic  Development.  Doubtless  anything  he  might  write  on 
this  question  would  embroil  him  with  many  of  the  philologists,  as 
his  utterances  upon  mythology  have  already  led  him  into  conflict 
with  Prof.  Max  Mtiller  and  his  followers.  How  far  this  would 
be  desirable,  and  what  would  be  his  probable  chances  of  success 
under  such  circumstances,  are  matters  upon  which  opinions  will 
differ;  but,  at  all  events,  it  is  instructive  to  notice  that,  as  a 
friend  has  pointed  out  to  me,  Prof.  Max  Muller  himself  has  re- 
cently been  going  sadly  astray  in  his  philological  discussions  for 
want  of  recognition  of  the  principles  of  evolution  in  their  appli- 
cation to  language.  All  his  learning  notwithstanding,  such  want 
must  necessarily  condemn  a  large  part  of  his  investigations  to 
sterility. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  71 

XI.  The  Consensus.  Treating  of  the  necessary  in- 
terdependence of  structures  and  of  functions  in  each 
type  of  society  and  in  the  successive  phases  of  social 
development. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  MORALITY. 
Vol.  I. 

PART  I.  The  Data  of  Morality.  Generalizations 
furnished  by  biology,  psychology,  and  sociology,  which 
underlie  a  true  theory  of  right  living :  in  other  words, 
the  elements  of  that  equilibrium  between  constitution 
and  conditions  of  existence,  which  is  at  once  the  moral 
ideal  and  the  limit  towards  which  we  are  progressing. 

II.  The  Inductions  of  Morality.     Those  empirically 
established  rules  of  human  action  which  are  registered 
as  essential  laws  by  all  civilized  nations :  that  is  to  say, 
the  generalizations  of  expediency. 

III.  Personal  Morals.     The  principles  of  private 
conduct — physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious — 
that  follow  from  the  conditions  to  complete  individual 
life ;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  those  modes  of  private 
action  which  must  result  from  the  eventual  equilibra- 
tion of  internal  desires  and  external  needs. 

Vol.  II. 

IV.  Justice.     The  mutual  limitations  of  men's  ac- 
tions, necessitated  by  their  coexistence  as  units  of   a 
society — limitations,  the  perfect  observance  of  which 


72  PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

constitutes  that  state  of  equilibrium  forming  the  goal 
of  political  progress. 

V.  Negative  Beneficence.     Those  secondary  limita- 
tions, similarly  necessitated,  which,  though  less  impor- 
tant and  not  cognizable  by  law,  are  yet  requisite  to 
prevent  mutual  destruction  of  happiness  in  various  in- 
direct ways :  in  other  words,  those  minor  self-restraints, 
dictated  by  what  may  be  called  passive  sympathy. 

VI.  Positive     Beneficence.      Comprehending    all 
modes  of  conduct,  dictated  by  active  sympathy,  which 
imply  pleasure   in  giving  pleasure — modes  of  conduct 
that  social   adaptation  has  induced  and   must  render 
ever  more  general ;  and  which,  in  becoming  universal, 
must  fill  to  the  full  the  possible  measure  of  human 
happiness. 

I  reproduce  this  important  document  here  for  two 
reasons :  first,  because  it  is  convenient  for  the  student 
of  Spencer  to  have  under  his  eye  for  reference  and 
guidance  such  a  general  programme  of  the  scope  and 
aim  of  the  system  taken  as  a  whole,  and  of  the  con- 
catenation of  its  various  parts ;  and,  secondly,  because 
it  is  instructive  to  notice  with  what  fidelity  Mr.  Spen- 
cer has  adhered  to  his  original  plan.  Any  one  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  compare  the  above  sketch  given 
here  as  it  stood  when  it  first  appeared,  more  than 
thirty-three  years  ago,  with  the  contents  of  the  differ- 
ent volumes  and  portions  of  volumes  that  have  been 
published  up  to  the  present  time,  can  hardly  fail  to  be 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  73 

astonished  to  observe  the  remarkable  correspondence 
between  them — a  correspondence  which  shows  how 
fully  and  accurately  Mr.  Spencer  must  have  had  the 
whole  vast  territory  mapped  out  in  his  mind,  even 
down  to  the  minutest  details,  before  he  sat  down  to 
commit  himself  to  the  penning  of  a  single  line. 

II. 

The  philosophic  undertaking  thus  outlined,  and 
now  brought  within  measurable  distance  of  comple- 
tion, differs  from  all  other  comprehensive  bodies  of 
thought  with  which  in  its  external  characteristics  it 
might  be  compared,  alike  in  its  method  and  its  scope. 
In  approaching  the  study  of  the  Synthetic  System  we 
cannot  do  better  than  emphasize  its  uniqueness  in  both 
of  these  aspects. 

In  the  early  days  of  philosophic  speculation  it  was 
sufficient  if,  in  the  building  up  of  his  elaborate  struc- 
ture of  doctrine,  the  thinker  succeeded  in  making  the 
various  parts  of  his  system  coherent  and  harmonious 
among  themselves.  So  long  as  they  would  hang  to- 
gether without  internal  friction  or  disorder,  so  long  as 
in  this  way  they  would,  verbally  considered,  produce 
the  impression  of  organic  unity,  nothing  more  was 
required.  How  far  they  might  or  might  not  be  con- 
gruous with  the  actual  laws  and  processes  of  the  uni- 
verse was  a  question  which,  in  the  then  condition  of 
knowledge,  would  never  be  taken  into  serious  consid- 
eration. Thus  the  Platos  of  old  days,  and  the  Hegels 


74  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  more  recent  times,  could  start  from  whatever  datum 
they  chose  to  postulate,  and  spin  their  poetic  webs  of 
fanciful  metaphysics  without  troubling  themselves  to 
inquire  whether  the  facts  of  the  world  were  for  or 
against  them.  In  the  former  case,  well  and  good ;  in 
the  latter,  tant  pis  pour  les  fails :  in  either  event 
their  work  went  on  uninterrupted  and  untrammelled.* 
Wherever  they  looked  out  on  the  universe  they  saw 
nothing  but  a  reflection  of  their  own  whims  and  theo- 
ries ;  reminding  us  of  Coleridge's  brilliant  metaphor  of 
Jack  Robinson  between  two  mirrors,  prolonged  into  an 
endless  succession  of  Jack  Robinsons.  But  Science,  in 
opening  up  the  arcana  of  the  universe,  has  passed  all 
such  methods  under  summary  condemnation.  The 
fabled  German  is  said,  in  the  familiar  story,  to  have 
evolved  a  camel  out  of  the  depths  of  his  inner  con- 
sciousness ;  and  the  monstrosity  which  he  boldly  offered 
to  the  world  would  have  done  well  enough  so  long  as 
no  real  camel  had  been  examined  and  studied.  But 
the  importation  of  a  genuine  animal  into  the  matter 
changed  at  once  the  attitude  and  increased  the  responsi- 
bilities of  the  would-be  naturalist.  His  description  of 


*  In  Lord  Bolingbroke's  Letter  to  Alexander  Pope  there  is  a 
passage  obviously  more  appropriate  to  certain  later  philosophers 
than  to  those  he  himself  had  in  view  when  penning  it :  "  Rather 
than  creep  up  slowly,  a  posteriori,  to  a  little  general  knowledge, 
they  soar  at  once  as  far  and  as  high  as  imagination  can  carry 
them.  From  thence  they  descend  again,  armed  with  systems  and 
arguments  a  priori;  and,  regardless  how  these  agree  or  clash 
with  the  phenomena  of  Nature,  they  impose  them  on  mankind." 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  75 

the  camel  must  now  not  only  possess  the  qualities 
of  internal  balance  and  feasibility,  but  it  must  also 
meet  the  additional  requirement  of  resemblance  to 
the  camel  of  the  actual  world.  The  parable  hardly 
needs  interpretation.  For  this  simply  means  that 
all  philosophy  worthy  of  the  name  must  henceforth 
build  upon  foundations  firmly  laid  in  scientific  verity. 
Any  system  that  neglects  science  as  its  corner-stone 
stands  self-condemned,  and  does  not  merit  serious 
thought. 

Now,  the  first  characteristic  mark  of  the  Spencerian 
philosophy  is,  that  its  vast  superstructure  is  reared  not 
independently  of  science,  still  less  in  spite  of  science, 
but  out  of  the  very  materials  that  science  itself  has 
furnished.  Yet,  in  our  task  of  building  up  in  this 
way  a  body  of  doctrine  which  shall  not  only  be 
verbally  intelligible  in  itself  but  shall  at  every  point 
stand  the  supreme  test  of  direct  comparison  with  fact, 
two  methods  are  open  to  us.  In  the  first  place,  we 
might  separately  examine  the  various  concrete  sciences 
in  quest  of  the  highest  truth  or  truths  that  these 
would  each  yield ;  and  setting  together  the  generali- 
zations thus  reached,  we  might  endeavour  to  formu- 
late from  these  the  still  wider  generalization  in  which 
they  would  all  merge.  Close  analysis  of  this  widest 
generalization  would  then  reveal  the  ultimate  axiom — a 
datum  which,  as  referable  to  nothing  beyond  or  behind 
it,  must  be  taken,  so  to  speak,  upon  its  own  credentials, 
and  would  be  accepted  as  the  starting-point  of  our 


76  PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

philosophy.*  This  would  be  to  proceed  according  to 
the  inductive  method  in  its  unadulterated  form.  But 
this  would  have  its  disadvantages.  The  enormous 
number  and  bewildering  variety  of  the  materials  with 
which  we  should  have  to  deal  would  render  our  inquiry 
so  cumbrous  and  uncertain,  that  it  is  questionable 
whether  the  most  carefully  co-ordinated  series  of  in- 
ductions would  ever  place 'us  in  undisputed  possession 
of  that  widest  generalization  of  which  we  are  in  search ; 
and  our  doubt  on  this  head  would  be  strengthened  on 
our  recollecting  that,  magnificent  as  have  been  the  re- 
sults achieved  by  induction  in  the  past,  the  richest  do- 
mains of  our  modern  science  have  not  been  conquered 
by  its  unaided  strength  and  skill,  f  The  second  possible 
plan  is  to  commence  at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  Sup- 
pose that  by  means  of  a  direct  examination  of  the  facts 
of  consciousness  we  could  come  in  sight  of  a  single  a 
priori  truth.  Accepting  this  as  our  axiom,  we  should 
then  have  to  deduce  from  it  those  all-embracing  gen- 


*  It  is  well  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  most  rigid 
method  of  induction  does  not  relieve  us  of  the  obligation  of  pos- 
tulating somewhere  an  unproved  and  unprovable  principle.  We 
must  fasten  the  final  link  of  our  chain  somewhere,  if  we  have  to 
introduce  a  foot  of  Jove  for  the  purpose.  Otherwise  our  philoso- 
phy is  without  a  basis,  like  the  old  Hindu  theory  of  the  universe. 
See  particularly  Mill  versus  Hamilton  (Essays,  vol.  ii.). 

f  The  case  of  Newton  will  at  once  suggest  itself  as  an  instance 
in  point,  since  his  brilliant  discoveries  were  made  by  calling  in  the 
deductive  in  aid  of  the  inductive  method.  All  this  is  put  with 
admirable  lucidity  in  Mr.  John  Fiske's  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philoso- 
phy, i,  265-267. 


THE  SYNTHETIC   PHILOSOPHY.  77 

eralizations  in  which  the  special  phenomena  of  all  the 
concrete  sciences  find  their  interpretation.  And  here 
our  deductive  process  must  be  brought  to  the  touch- 
stone of  induction.  If  the  widest  generalizations  yet 
reached  by  a  co-ordination  of  the  concrete  sciences  are 
found  to  be  at  the  same  time  the  necessary  corollaries 
that  we  have  already  deduced  from  the  ultimate  prin- 
ciple previously  postulated,  our  synthesis  is  placed  upon 
the  firmest  of  possible  foundations.  Our  universal 
principles,  formulated  both  deductively  and  inductively, 
have  thus  the  highest  kind  of  certitude,  and  may  be 
boldly  carried  forward  into  all  the  particular  groups 
of  phenomena  constituting  the  subject-matter  of  the 
various  concrete  sciences,  with  every  prospect  of  their 
throwing  light  into  many  dark  places  by  the  way. 

Now,  this  is  the  method  adopted  by  Mr.  Spencer. 
After  the  preparatory  work  of  clearing  the  ground  has 
been  accomplished  by  showing  what  is  the  task  that 
philosophy  has  to  undertake,  the  volume  concerned 
with  the  establishment  of  the  first  principles  of  the  Syn- 
thetic System  proceeds  to  a  formulation  of  the  laws  of 
the  knowable.  Direct  search  leads  to  the  enunciation 
of  a  single  fundamental  and  ultimate  principle — that  of 
the  persistence  of  force;  and  corollaries  immediately 
deducible  from  this  principle  establish  for  us  the  neces- 
sity and  mark  out  the  law  of  evolution — a  law  to  which, 
as  our  deductive  inquiry  shows  us,  all  orders  of  cosmical 
phenomena  must  conform.  Having  in  this  way  reached 
the  statement  of  his  largest  principles,  Mr.  Spencer  has 


78  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

recourse  to  the  method  of  induction.  These  principles 
are  carried  to  the  test  of  fact;  are  found  to  merge  in 
the  widest  generalizations  of  science  inductively  arrived 
at ;  and  are  thus  held  to  meet  the  most  rigid  demand, 
and  to  be  demonstrated  beyond  possibility  of  question. 
The  Spencerian  philosophy  has  thus  unique  claims  on 
the  score  of  its  logical  completeness.  Recognizing  to 
the  full  the  value  of  inductive  verification,  it  presents 
us  with  a  complete  history  of  the  knowable  universe  in 
its  empirical  form.  But  it  does  more  than  this :  by 
affiliating  its  all-embracing  generalizations  upon  princi- 
ples already  established,  it  furnishes  a  rational  history 
of  the  knowable  universe  as  well. 

But  if  the  Synthetic  System  stands  alone  in  respect 
of  its  method,  it  does  so  no  less  in  respect  of  its  scope. 
The  older  philosophers  demanded  an  explanation  of 
existence;  the  problem  for  which  they  sought  a  solu- 
tion was  the  problem  of  the  nature  of  things ;  and,  not 
content  with  the  study  of  the  phenomenal  universe,  it 
was  their  endeavour  to  sound  the  mystery  of  absolute 
being.  What  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  cosmos? 
What  is  its  final  cause — the  end  for  which  it  exists? 
These,  and  nothing  less  than  these,  are  the  stupendous 
questions  which  generations  of  metaphysicians  from 
time  immemorial  have  busied  themselves  to  answer. 
With  what  result?  With  the  result  that  failure  has 
followed  every  effort,  and  that  every  scheme,  no  matter 
how  carefully  planned,  how  elaborately  developed,  how 
verbally  plausible,  has  sooner  or  later  been  forced  to 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  79 

take  its  place  among  the  curiosities  of  misapplied  in- 
genuity in  the  intellectual  lumber-heap  of  the  world. 
The  futility  of  all  the  study  devoted  in  the  past  to 
these  fascinating  but  elusive  questions — the  absurdities 
that  each  fresh  speculator  will  freely  acknowledge  as 
the  characteristics  of  every  system  but  his  own — the 
total  inadequacy  of  each  new  master- word  to  roll  back 
for  us  the  eternal  gates  that  shut  from  human  knowl- 
edge the  final  mystery  of  life ;  all  these  things  have  in 
themselves  sufficed  to  lead  some  of  the  clearest  and 
sanest  intellects  of  the  past  to  an  appreciation  of  the 
fact  that  the  old-world  riddle  remains  unsolved  be- 
cause it  is  insoluble.*  Fresh  efforts  to  read  the  enigma 
of  the  Sphinx  will  therefore  be  followed  by  the  familiar 
results.  But  we  need  no  longer  rest  in  any  such  em- 
pirical conclusion.  Modern  psychology  shows  us  the 
reason  of  the  historic  failure  by  making  clear  the  con- 
ditions under  which  all  our  thinking  must  be  done — 

*  Goethe — among  the  first  to  appreciate  to  the  full  the  philo- 
sophic consequences  of  the  limitations  of  human  faculty — again 
and  again  insisted  that  our  business  is  with  the  laws  and  condi- 
tions of  the  phenomenal  universe,  and  not  with  the  ultimate 
mystery  that  lies  behind  them. 

"Wief  Wann?  und  Wo? 
Die  G6tter  blieben  stumm. 
Du  halte  dich  ans  Weil, 
Und  f  rage  nicht  Warum  ! " 

Elsewhere  he  writes  to  this  effect :  "  Man  is  born  not  to  solve 
the  problem  of  the  universe  but  to  find  out  where  the  problem 
begins,  and  then  to  restrain  himself  within  the  limits  of  the 
comprehensible." 


80     PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

conditions  which,  when  once  duly  recognized,  reveal 
beyond  the  shadow  of  doubt  or  the  possibility  of  ques- 
tion why  it  has  been,  is,  and  ever  must  be  futile  for  the 
human  intelligence  to  attempt  to  rise  from  the  relative 
and  the  phenomenal  into  the  consideration  of  that  abso- 
lute and  noumenal  existence  of  which  these  are  but  the 
manifestations. 

We  must  make  up  our  minds,  therefore,  that  our 
system  of  philosophy  must  leave  out  of  its  account 
those  very  questions  with  which  all  metaphysics  have 
been  principally  concerned.  The  primary  and  final 
causes  of  the  universe  present  problems  which  we  have 
to  acknowledge  to  lie  beyond  our  scope.  What,  then, 
is  left  us?  Barred  from  any  possible  insight  into  the 
enigma  of  absolute  cause  and  end,  we  have  the  whole 
field  of  secondary  cause  and  end  open  for  our  explora- 
tion. Declining  to  undertake  any  solution  of  the  why 
and  wherefore  of  the  cosmos,  science  is  free  to  devote  all 
its  energies  to  the  question  of  the  how.  What  we  de- 
mand from  it  is  not,  therefore,  an  explanation  of  the 
universe,  but  a  complete  co-ordination,  or  systematic 
organization,  of  those  cosmical  laws  by  which  we  sym- 
bolize the  processes  of  the  universe,  and  the  interrela- 
tions of  the  various  phenomena  of  which  the  universe  is 
composed. 

What,  then,  is  philosophy?  The  old  idea,  that  it 
consists  of  knowledge  generically  different  from  com- 
mon knowledge,  has  to  be  abandoned ;  we  find  that  the 
difference  is  one  only  of  degree.  "As  each  widest 


THE  SYNTHETIC   PHILOSOPHY.  gl 

generalization  of  science  comprehends  and  consolidates 
the  narrower  generalizations  of  its  own  division,  so  the 
generalizations  of  philosophy  comprehend  and  consoli- 
date the  widest  generalizations  of  science.  It  is  there- 
fore a  knowledge  the  extreme  opposite  in  kind  to  that 
which  experience  first  accumulates.  It  is  the  final 
product  of  that  process  which  begins  with  a  mere  colli- 
gation of  crude  observations,  goes  on  establishing  propo- 
sitions that  are  broader  and  more  separated  from  par- 
ticular cases,  and  ends  in  universal  propositions.  Or,  to 
bring  the  definition  to  its  simplest  and  clearest  form : 
Knowledge  of  the  lowest  kind  is  ununified  knowledge ; 
science  is  partially -unified  knowledge;  philosophy  is 
completely -unified  knowledge."  * 

III. 

Such,  then,  are  the  methods  and  scope  of  the  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy.  We  proceed  now  to  the  briefest 
possible  statement  of  its  most  important  principles. 

Starting,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  datum  of  the 
persistence  of  force — a  datum  which  possesses  the  high- 
est kind  of  axiomatic  certitude,  inasmuch  as  it  forms  a 
basis  for  all  other  general  truths,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  constitutes  the  one  inexpugnable  yet  inexplicable  ele- 
ment of  consciousness — Mr.  Spencer  goes  on  to  formu- 
late from  this  three  universal  laws : — the  law  of  the  in- 
stability of  the  homogeneous,  the  law  of  the  multiplica- 

*  First  Principles,  §  37. 


82  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

tion  of  effects,  and  the  law  of  segregation.  Oil  these 
three  laws  he  establishes  the  necessity  of  that  redistri- 
bution of  matter  and  motion  of  which  evolution  is  one 
phase.  This  widest  generalization  of  science  is  thus 
deprived  of  its  merely  empirical  character,  and  is  given 
a  rational  foundation. 

Hence,  the  question,  What  is  evolution?  And  how 
shall  we  define  it  in  philosophical  terminology — in 
terminology,  that  is,  which  will  hold  good,  not  for  this 
or  that  class  of  phenomena,  but  for  all  classes  of  phe- 
nomena whatsoever?  To  answer  these  questions  intel- 
ligibly, and  to  enter  into  the  full  meaning  of  the  ex- 
tremely abstract  formula  in  which  Mr.  Spencer  has 
summed  up  the  universal  characteristics  of  this  class  of 
change,  it  will  be  most  convenient  for  us  to  turn  back 
and  follow  the  course  of  his  thought,  marking  out  the 
steps  by  which  the  formula  itself  was  arrived  at.  Points 
otherwise  obscure  will  by  this  means  be  robbed  of  much 
of  their  difficulty,  and  a  good  deal  of  subsequent  eluci- 
dation will  be  spared.- 

We  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's earliest  speculations  were  of  a  humanitarian  char- 
acter, and  that  his  line  of  approach  to  the  study  of  gen- 
eral evolution  lay  through  that  limited  phase  of  develop- 
ment which  we  call  progress.  The  theory  of  progress 
had  been  handed  down  to  the  thinkers  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  by  those  of  the  eighteenth,  and,  despite 
the  absurdities  and  extravagances  that  had  vitiated  its 
first  manifestations — despite  the  vagueness  and  the 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  83 

crudity  that  it  bore  with  it  as  an  hereditary  taint,  the 
kernel  of  vital  truth  that  it  enfolded  rendered  it  a 
fertile  contribution  to  thought.  Mr.  Spencer's  earliest 
writings  are  dominated  by  this  idea  of  individual  and 
social  advance ;  but  it  was  altogether  foreign  to  his  in- 
tellectual character  to  interest  himself  in  the  working 
out  of  a  conception  that  was  not  at  bottom  susceptible 
of  definite  interpretation.  It  is  all  very  well  to  talk 
about  progress ;  but  what  is  progress  ?  This  was  the 
special  form  of  the  question  to  which  for  a  number  of 
years  he  was  gradually  feeling  his  way  to  an  answer. 

Already  in  Social  Statics  he  had  reached  what  then 
seemed  to  him  an  adequate  reply.  Asserting  the  neces- 
sity of  progress  (here  metaphysically  associated  with  a 
preordained  order),*  he  develops  his  theory  from  Cole- 
ridge's definition  of  life  as  "a  tendency  towards  indi- 
viduation."  It  is  in  the  gradual  fulfilment  of  this  tend- 
ency, says  Mr.  Spencer,  that  all  progress  will  be  found 
to  consist.  Throughout  the  whole  animate  world  we 
discover  it  at  work  in  the  production  of  higher  and 
higher  forms  of  organization  and  structure,  and  in  man 
its  fullest  manifestation  is  reached.  "  By  virtue  of  his 
complexity  of  structure  he  is  furthest  removed  from  the 
inorganic  world  in  which  there  is  least  individuality. 


*  This  is  one  of  the  many  points  at  which  this  remarkable 
book  presents  itself  as  a  connecting  link  between  eighteenth  cen- 
tury theories  of  progress,  with  their  express  or  implicit  teleology, 
and  the  definite  and  scientific  statement  that  Mr.  Spencer  after- 
wards evolved. 


84  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Again,  his  intelligence  and  adaptability  commonly  en- 
able him  to  maintain  life  to  old  age — to  complete  the 
cycle  of  his  existence ;  that  is,  to  fill  out  the  limits  of 
this  individuality  to  the  full.  Again,  he  is  self-con- 
scious; that  is,  he  recognizes  his  own  individuality. 
And  .  .  .  even  the  change  observable  in  human  affairs 
is  still  towards  a  greater  development  of  individuality — 
may  still  be  described  as  '  a  tendency  to  individuation.'  "* 

Translated  into  more  philosophical  language,  this 
tendency  to  individuation  is  found  to  embrace  two 
closely  interrelated  processes.  Obviously,  increasing 
complexity  is  one  of  these ;  not  so  obviously  this  in- 
crease of  complexity  must  have  increase  of  unity  as  its 
natural  accompaniment.  Universal  specialization,  with 
its  resulting  advance  in  heterogeneity,  is  only  possible 
if,  while  all  things  are  becoming  more  and  more  charac- 
teristically marked  off  from  one  another,  they  are  at  the 
same  time  becoming  gradually  more  and  more  interde- 
pendent. The  line  of  growth  is  "  at  once  towards  com- 
plete separateness  and  complete  union."  f  Differentia- 
tion without  concomitant  unification  would  lead  to 
chaos  and  confusion;  differentiation  along  with  con- 
comitant unification  produces  that  organic  harmony 
which  we  call  progress. 

This  double  aspect  of  the  matter  is  clearly  recog- 
nized in  Social  Statics,J  and  was  never  entirely  lost 


*  Social  Statics,  chap,  xxx,  §  12.  f  Ibid.,  chap,  xxx,  §  13. 

J  Chap,  xxx,  §§  13,  14. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  85 

sight  of  in  Mr.  Spencer's  subsequent  speculations.* 
Yet,  as  was  not  unnatural,  it  was  the  more  striking  and 
conspicuous  element  in  progress  that  for  some  time 
alone  absorbed  his  attention.  Allowing  the  doctrine 
of  unification  to  drop  practically  out  of  his  thought,  he 
fixed  his  mind  upon  the  factor  of  increasing  differentia- 
tion, which,  detached  from  all  other  considerations,  he 
attempted,  in  the  essay  on  Progress,  its  Law  and  Cause, 
to  expand  into  a  complete  theory  of  universal  develop- 
ment. 

In  this  course  he  was  materially  assisted  by  German 
speculations  on  the  evolution  of  the  individual  organism. f 
"  The  investigations  of  Wolff,  Goethe,  and  Yon  Baer," 
he  writes  in  the  early  part  of  the  just-named  article, 
"  have  established  the  truth  that  the  series  of  changes 
gone  through  during  the  development  of  a  seed  into  a 
tree,  or  an  ovum  into  an  animal,  constitute  an  advance 
from  homogeneity  of  structure  to  heterogeneity  of 
structure.  In  its  primary  stage  every  germ  consists  of 
a  substance  that  is  uniform  throughout,  both  in  texture 
and  chemical  composition.  The  first  step  is  the  appear- 
ance of  a  difference  between  two  parts  of  this  substance ; 
or,  as  the  phenomenon  is  called  in  physiological  language, 
a  differentiation.  ...  By  endless  such  differentiations 


*  In  the  essays  on  the  Philosophy  of  Style  and  the  Genesis  of 
Science,  for  example,  the  doctrine  of  increasing  unification  is 
clearly  stated. 

f  These  he  became  acquainted  with  in  1852 — that  is,  after  the 
publication  of  Social  Statics.    (See  First  Principles,  §  119,  note.) 
7 


86     PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

there  is  finally  produced  that  complex  combination  of 
tissues  and  organs  constituting  the  adult  animal  or 
plant.  This  is  the  history  of  all  organisms  whatever. 
It  is  settled  beyond  dispute  that  organic  progress  con- 
sists in  a  change  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  hetero- 
geneous. Now,  we  propose  ...  to  show  that  this  law 
of  organic  progress  is  the  law  of  all  progress.  .  .  . 
From  the  earliest  traceable  cosmical  changes  down  to 
the  latest  results  of  civilization,  we  shall  find  that  the 
transformation  of  the  homogeneous  into  the  hetero- 
geneous is  that  in  which  progress  essentially  con- 
sists." 

A  full  half  of  the  essay  in  question  is  devoted  to  an 
inductive  establishment  of  this  thesis;  the  other  half 
being  taken  up  with  the  affiliation  of  this  universal  pro- 
cess upon  a  universal  law — that  every  cause  produces 
more  than  one  effect.  The  statement  set  forth,  there- 
fore, is,  that  evolution  is  a  change  from  a  condition  of 
homogeneity  to  a  condition  of  heterogeneity,  brought 
about  by  ever-increasing  differentiations.  So  certain 
had  Mr.  Spencer  now  become  that  this  was  not  only  a 
law  of  evolution,  but  the  law  of  evolution,  that  he  in- 
corporated the  formula  in  the  first  edition  of  his  First 
Principles.* 


*  "In  that  essay  [on  Progress],  ...  as  also  in  the  first  edi- 
tion of  this  work,  I  fell  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  the  trans- 
formation of  the  homogeneous  into  the  heterogeneous  constitutes 
evolution;  whereas  ...  it  constitutes  the  secondary  redistribu- 
tion accompanying  the  primary  redistribution  in  that  evolution 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  87 

Further  thought,  however,  led  him  to  see  that  this 
was  only  a  partial  view  of  the  case.  An  important 
truth,  of  which  he  had  just  caught  a  glimpse  in  Social 
Statics,  had  now  to  be  reinstated  in  his  plan.  The 
mere  change  in  the  direction  of  increasing  heterogene- 
ity or  complexity  could  not,  as  he  came  presently  to 
realize,  be  held  to  constitute  evolution.  An  injury  to 
an  organism  renders  the  organism  more  multiform  in  its 
composition;  a  cancer  in  the  system  produces  marked 
increase  in  heterogeneity ;  a  revolution  in  the  social 
state  renders  the  state  far  less  homogeneous;  but  we 
look  upon  none  of  these  changes  as  changes  in  the  line 
of  progress  or  evolution.  On  the  contrary,  we  see  at 
once  that  they  tend  in  the  opposite  direction — in  the 
direction  of  dissolution ;  for,  let  them  go  on  long  enough 
and  far  enough,  and  dissolution  will  be  the  inevitable 
result.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  we  must  seek  for  another 
law  to  condition  this  of  progressive  differentiation. 
When  is  it  that  the  transformation  from  the  homogene- 
ous to  the  heterogeneous  means  evolution,  and  when  is 
it  that  it  means  the  reverse  ?  The  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion will  be  found  in  a  return  to  our  half-realized  but 
now  partially-forgotten  principle  of  unification.  Add 
this  to  the  previously-enunciated  doctrine  of  increas- 
ing homogeneity,  and  the  complete  formula  is  reached. 
The  differentiation  of  an  organism  into  many  special- 

whieh  we  distinguish  as  compound — or,  rather,  ...  it  constitutes 
the  most  conspicuous  part  of  this  secondary  redistribution." 
(First  Principles,  §  119,  note.) 


88 

ized  parts  is  one  requirement  of  the  developmental  pro- 
cess ;  the  other  requirement  is  seen  to  be  fulfilled  when 
and  only  when  these  various  specialized  parts  become 
more  and  more  interdependent.  Along  with  advance 
towards  increasing  heterogeneity  there  must  also  be  an 
advance  towards  completer  organic  unity.  Apply  this 
new  statement  of  the  law  to  the  cases  above  referred 
to,  and  it  will  be  seen  immediately  that  the  want  before 
felt  is  now  made  good.  A  cancer  in  the  system,  a  revo- 
lution in  the  state,  while  they  increase  the  complexity, 
break  up  or  jeopardize  the  unity,  of  organization.  Evo- 
lution, therefore,  is  always  integration,  as  dissolution  is 
disintegration. 

Thus  we  have  followed  Mr.  Spencer  to  the  establish- 
ment of  his  world-famous  formula  of  evolution  in  its 
completed  shape.  Abstract  and  concise  as  it  is  in 
statement,  it  will  now  be  found  to  present  no  insuper- 
able difficulty,  for  we  have  reached  it  by  a  route  that  has 
made  each  part  of  it  separately  clear.  Evolution,  then, 
is  to  be  defined  as  a  continuous  change  from  indefinite 
incoherent  homogeneity  to  definite  coherent  heterogeneity 
of  structure  and  function,  through  successive  differen- 
tiations and  integrations* 

*  In  a  purely  introductory  volume  like  the  present,  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  give  this  definition  in  the  simplest  form  com- 
patible with  complete  statement.  In  its  most  fully  developed 
shape  it  runs :  Evolution  is  an  integration  of  matter  and  concomi- 
tant dissipation  of  motion ;  during  which  the  matter  passes  from 
an  indefinite  incoherent  homogeneity  to  a  definite  coherent  hetero- 
geneity ;  and  during  which  the  retained  motion  undergoes  a  paral- 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  89 

The  world  at  large  has  a  horror  of  abstract  state- 
ments, and  there  is  in  the  air  a  vague  but  none  the 
less  influential  belief,  that  because  long  and  unfamiliar 
words  are  often  used  to  disguise  paucity  of  thought, 
paucity  of  thought  must  always  be  predicated  where 
they  are  employed.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that 
so  many  estimable  people  are  more  inclined  to  ridicule 
the  above  formula  than  to  attempt  to  understand  it ;  it 
is  surprising  only  when  we  find  men  of  cultivation  and 
enlightenment  following  the  same  vulgar  course.  Prof. 
Goldwin  Smith  it  was,  we  believe,  who  years  ago  re- 
marked that  the  universe  must  have  heaved  a  sigh  of 
relief  when  this  explanation  of  her  processes  was  given 
to  an  astonished  world  through  the  cerebration  of  a  dis- 
tinguished thinker.  Perhaps  we  may  be  allowed  to 
smile  at  the  epigram  without  losing  one  particle  of  our 
faith  in  the  doctrine  against  which  it  is  levelled.  But 
of  all  the  efforts  hitherto  made  to  meet  a  great  principle 
with  the  weapons  of  verbal  wit,  that  of  Mr.  Kirkman, 
the  well-known  English  mathematician,  holds  an  easy 
supremacy.  Taking  our  formula  as  it  stood  in  the  edi- 
tion of  First  Principles  of  1862 — the  statement  there 
given  differing  slightly  from  that  adopted  later — he  un- 
dertakes to  translate  it  "into  plain  English,"  and  the 
following  jargon  of  uncouth  phraseology  is  the  result : 


lei  transformation  (First  Principles.  §  145).  Practically  speaking, 
what  we  mainly  have  to  keep  in  mind  is,  that  evolution  is  a 
double-sided  process — multiformity  in  unity,  or  specialization 
along  with  mutual  dependence. 


90  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

"Evolution  is  a  change  from  a  nohowish,  untalkabout- 
able,  all-alikeness  to  a  somehowish  and  in-general  talk- 
aboutable,  not-all-alikeness,  by  continuous  something- 
elseifications  and  sticktogetherations."  For  myself,  I 
can  only  say  that  I  regret  that  Mr.  Spencer  ever  saw  fit 
to  take  this  exhibition  of  intellectual  gymnastics  seri- 
ously, as  he  has  done  in  the  appendix  to  the  fourth  edi- 
tion of  First  Principles.  As  a  joke  it  is  well  enough ; 
but  a  man  who  knows  so  little  about  the  needs  of  lan- 
guage that  he  puts  it  forth  in  place  of  argument,  and 
appears  to  think  that  he  has  thereby  made  short  work 
of  the  principle  that  the  formula  embodies,  is  surely  not 
worth  powder  and  shot.  Provided  that  Mr.  Kirkman's 
translation  is  absolutely  accurate  (which  in  one  or  two 
points  may  be  taken  to  be  doubtful),  and  provided,  fur- 
ther, that  the  English  compounds  that  he  offers  in  place 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  equivalents  can  be  made  to  bear 
the  same  high  degree  of  generality  that  the  original 
words  convey,  then  all  that  it  is  necessary  to  say  is,  that 
the  principle  remains  just  as  true  in  the  one  form  of 
statement  as  in  the  other.  Let  Mr.  Kirkman  call  hete- 
rogeneity somethingelseification,  and  integration  stick- 
togetheration,  if  it  pleases  him  best  to  do  so ;  it  Done 
the  less  remains  a  fact  that  the  double  change  towards 
diversity  in  unity  is  that  in  which  all  evolution  will 
be  found  to  consist.  Translate  the  whole  formula  into 
Hottentot  or  Cherokee,  if  you  like ;  the  truth  for  which 
it  stands  will  not  be  made  a  whit  less  true. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  91 

IV. 

One  supremely  important  point  must  here  be  re- 
ferred to  in  passing,  to  prevent  possible  misapprehen- 
sions. 

It  is  a  common  error  to  suppose  that  evolution  is 
continuous  and  uninterrupted — that  its  course  may  be 
symbolized  by  a  straight  line.  A  wavy  line  would, 
roughly  speaking,  be  its  more  correct  expression.  An 
immediate  corollary  from  Mr.  Spencer's  first  principle 
of  the  persistence  of  force  is  the  law  of  the  rhythm  of 
motion.  "Were  there  only  a  single  body  in  space,  a  sin- 
gle force  would  impel  that  body  at  a  uniform  rate  to  all 
eternity  along  an  undeviating  course ;  but  in  that  case 
no  variety  would  ever  arise  and  no  evolution  would  be 
possible.  Evolution,  therefore,  implies  retrogression, 
and  throughout  the  whole  universe  motion  is  rhyth- 
mical or  undulatory.  This  is  true  of  all  phenomena, 
from  the  minutest  changes  cognizable  by  science  to  the 
latest  transformation  of  societies  studied  by  the  econo- 
mist and  the  historian.* 

Evolution,  then,  as  we  have  always  to  bear  in  mind, 
does  not  sum  up  the  entire  history  of  the  universe,  but 
only  its  ascending  history.  All  existence  passes  through 
a  cycle  of  change,  and  sooner  or  later  dissolution  asserts 
itself  to  undo  the  work  that  evolution  has  done.  Thus 
we  have  throughout  to  recognize  the  ascending  and  the 

*  Diagrammatically,  making  allowance  for  the  rhythm  of  all 
motion  and  the  consequent  alternation  of  evolution  and  dissolu- 


92  PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

descending  scale,  and  to  understand  that  the  one  is  the 
necessary  complement  of  the  other.  The  flood  of  new 
light  that  this  consideration  lets  in  upon  the  problems 
of  psychology  and  sociology  is  only  now  just  beginning 
to  be  appreciated ;  *  but  the  mind  staggers  before  its 

tion  (progress  and  retrogression),  the  history  of  the  universe  in 
general  and  detail  may  be  approximately  presented  in  this  way : 


it  being  understood  that,  while  each  of  the  smallest  lines  is  sup- 
posed itself  to  be  made  up  of  undulations  and  so  on  in  a  dimin- 
ishing scale,  the  whole  diagram  as  here  given  is  likewise  only  a 
limb  of  a  larger  rhythm,  and  this  again  of  a  still  larger  rhythm, 
ad  infinitum.  In  other  words,  as  the  minute  undulations,  a,  6,  c, 
d,  e,  /.  ff,  etc.,  are  components  of  the  larger  undulations  A,  B,  C, 
etc.,  and  these  again  of  the  still  larger  undulations  AA,  BB,  CO, 
etc. ;  these  still  larger  undulations  AA,  BB,  CC,  themselves  go  to 
make  up  vaster  sweeps  of  rhythm,  and  so  forth,  to  any  extent. 
All  this  reminds  us  of  De  Morgan's  verses : 

"  Great  fleas  have  little  fleas  upon  their  backs  to  bite  'em, 
And  little  fleas  have  lesser  fleas,  and  so  ad  infinitum  ; 
And  the  great  fleas  themselves,  in  turn,  have  greater  fleas  to  go  on, 
And  these  again  have  greater  still,  and  greater  still,  and  so  on." 

*  The  law  of  rhythm,  when  once  fully  recognized  by  the  stu- 
dent of  human  affairs,  will  introduce  important  changes  into  the 
philosophy  of  history.  In  other  practical  directions  its  influence 
promises  to  be  at  least  as  significant.  Dealing  with  various  illus- 
trations of  it,  as  furnished  by  individual  and  social  life,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer wrote :  "  Nor  are  there  wanting  evidences  of  mental  undula- 
tions greater  in  length  than  any  of  these  [which  he  had  just  been 
considering] — undulations  which  take"  weeks,  or  months,  or  years, 
to  complete  themselves.  We  continually  hear  of  moods  which  re- 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  93 

larger  possible  implications.  If  the  doctrine  of  rhythm 
— of  the  alternation  of  evolution  and  dissolution — holds 
good  of  every  detail  of  the  universe,  it  must  hold  good 
no  less  of  the  universe  taken  as  a  whole.  We  pause  a 
moment  upon  the  conception  of  eternal  change — eternal 
in  the  past,  eternal  in  the  future — which  this  doctrine 
unavoidably  suggests.  "Apparently  the  universally- 
coexistent  forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  necessitate  rhythm  in  all  minor  changes 


cur  at  intervals.  Very  many  persons  have  their  epochs  of  vivacity 
and  depression.  There  are  periods  of  industry  following  periods 
of  idleness,  and  times  at  which  particular  subjects  or  tastes  are 
cultivated  with  zeal,  alternating  with  times  at  which  they  are  neg- 
lected. Respecting  which  slow  oscillations,  the  only  qualification 
to  be  made  is  that,  being  affected  by  numerous  influences,  they  are 
comparatively  irregular  "  (First  Principles,  §  86).  Only  the  other 
day,  in  Dr.  0.  W.  Holmes's  Over  the  Teacups  (chap,  viii),  I  came 
across  the  following  striking  passage,  which  reads  almost  like  a 
commentary  upon  the  one  just  given :  "  I  think  if  patients  and 
physicians  were  in  the  habit  of  recognizing  the  fact  I  am  going  to 
mention,  both  would  be  gainers.  ...  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  normal  course  of  health  is  represented  by  a  straight  horizontal 
line.  Independently  of  the  well-known  causes  which  raise  or  de- 
press the  standard  of  vitality,  there  seems  to  be — I  think  I  may 
venture  to  say  there  is — a  rhythmic  undulation  in  the  flow  of  the 
vital  force.  The  'dynamo'  which  furnishes  the  working  powers 
of  consciousness  and  action  has  its  annual,  its  monthly,  its  diurnal 
waves — even  its  momentary  ripples — in  the  current  it  furnishes. 
There  are  greater  and  lesser  curves  in  the  movement  of  every  day's 
life — a  series  of  ascending  and  descending  movements ;  a  perio- 
dicity depending  on  the  very  nature  of  the  force  at  work  in  the  liv- 
ing organism.  Thus  we  have  our  good  seasons  and  our  bad  sea- 
sons, our  good  days  and  our  bad  days,  life  climbing  and  descend- 
ing in  long  or  short  undulations,  which  I  have  called  the  curve  of 
health." 


94:  PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPEN'CER. 

throughout  the  universe,  also  necessitate  rhythm  in  the 
totality  of  its  changes — produce  now  an  immeasurable 
period  during  which  the  attractive  forces,  predominat- 
ing, cause  universal  concentration,  and  then  an  im- 
measurable period  during  which  the  repulsive  forces, 
predominating,  cause  universal  diffusion — alternate  eras 
of  evolution  and  dissolution.  And  thus  there  is  sug- 
gested the  conception  of  a  past  during  which  there 
have  been  successive  evolutions  analogous  to  that  which 
is  now  going  on ;  and  a  future  during  which  successive 
other  such  evolutions  may  go  on — ever  the  same  in  prin- 
ciple, but  never  the  same  in  concrete  result."  * 

V. 

We  may  cap  this  brief  survey  of  some  of  the  main 
doctrines  of  First  Principles  by  the  following  summary 
of  his  philosophy  which  Mr.  Spencer  himself  drew  up 
a  number  of  years  ago  for  publication  in  Apple  tons' 
American  Cyclopedia,  and  which  is  here  reproduced 
from  that  work : 

1.  Throughout  the  universe,  in  general  and  in  de- 
tail, there  is  an  unceasing  redistribution  of  matter  and 
motion. 

2.  This  redistribution  constitutes  evolution  where 
there  is  a  predominant  integration  of  matter  and  dissi- 
pation  of    motion,  and  constitutes   dissolution  where 
there  is  a  predominant  absorption  of  motion  and  disin- 
tegration of  matter. 

*  First  Principles,  §  183. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  95 

3.  Evolution  is  simple  when  the  process  of  integra- 
tion, or  the  formation  of  a  coherent  aggregate,  proceeds 
uncomplicated  by  other  processes. 

4.  Evolution  is  compound  when  along  with  this  pri- 
mary change  from  an  incoherent  to  a  coherent  state 
there  go  on  secondary  changes,  due  to  differences  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  different  parts  of  the  aggregate. 

5.  These  secondary  changes  constitute  a  transfor- 
mation of  the  homogeneous  into  the  heterogeneous — a 
transformation  which,  like  the  first,  is  exhibited  in  the 
universe  as  a  whole  and  in  all  (or  nearly  all)  its  details 
— in  the  aggregate  of  stars  and  nebulae ;  in  the  plane- 
tary system ;  in  the  earth  as  an  inorganic  mass ;  in  each 
organism,  vegetal  or  animal  (Von  Baer's  law) ;  in  the 
aggregate  of  organisms  throughout  geologic  time;   in 
the  mind ;    in  society ;    in  all  products  of  social  ac- 
tivity. 

6.  The  process  of  integration,  acting  locally  as  well 
as  generally,  combines  with  the  process  of  differentia- 
tion to  render  this  change,  not  simply  from  homogene- 
ity to  heterogeneity,  but  from  an  indefinite  homogeneity 
to  a  definite  heterogeneity ;  and  this  trait  of  increasing 
definiteness,  which  accompanies  the  trait  of  increasing 
heterogeneity,  is,  like  it,  exhibited  in  the  totality  of 
things,  and  in  all  its  divisions  and  subdivisions  down  to 
the  minutest. 

7.  Along  with  this  redistribution  of  the  matter  com- 
posing any  evolving  aggregate,  there  goes  on  a  redistri- 
bution of  the  retained  motion  of  its  components  in  rela- 


96  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

tion  to  one  another;    this  also  becomes,  step  by  step, 
more  definitely  heterogeneous. 

8.  In  the  absence  of  a  homogeneity  that  is  infinite 
and  absolute,  this  redistribution,  of  which  evolution  is 
one  phase,  is  inevitable.     The  causes  which  necessitate 
it  are : 

9.  The  instability  of  the  homogeneous,  which  is  con- 
sequent upon  the  different  exposures  of  the  different 
parts  of  any  limited  aggregate  to  incident  forces.     The 
transformations  hence  resulting  are  complicated  by — 

10.  The  multiplication  of  effects :  every  mass  and 
part  of  a  mass  on  which  a  force  falls  subdivides  and  dif- 
ferentiates that  force,  which  thereupon  proceeds  to  work 
a  variety  of  changes ;  and  each  of  these  becomes  the  par- 
ent of  similarly  multiplying  changes :  the  multiplication 
of  these  becoming  greater  in  proportion  as  the  aggregate 
becomes  more  heterogeneous.     And  these  two  causes  of 
increasing  differentiations  are  furthered  by  — 

11.  Segregation,  which  is  a  process  tending  ever  to 
separate  unlike  units,  and  to  bring  together  like  units, 
so  serving  continually  to  sharpen  or  make  definite  dif- 
ferentiations otherwise  caused. 

12.  Equilibration  is  the  final  result  of  these  trans- 
formations which   an   evolving    aggregate    undergoes. 
The  changes  go  on  until  there  is  reached  an  equilibri- 
um between  the  forces  which  all  parts  of  the  aggre- 
gate are  exposed  to,  and  the  forces  these  parts  oppose 
to  them.     Equilibration  may  pass  through  a  transition 
stage  of  balanced  motions  (as  in  a  planetary  system),  or 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  97 

of  balanced  functions  (as  in  a  living  body),  on  the  way 
to  ultimate  equilibrium ;  but  the  state  of  rest  in  inor- 
ganic bodies,  or  death  in  organic  bodies,  is  the  necessary 
limit  of  the  changes  constituting  evolution. 

13.  Dissolution  is  the  counterchange  which  sooner 
or  later  every  evolved  aggregate  undergoes.     Remaining 
exposed  to  surrounding  forces  that  are  unequilibrated, 
each  aggregate  is  ever  liable  to  be  dissipated  by  the  in- 
crease, gradual  or  sudden,  of  its  contained  motion ;  and 
its  dissipation,  quickly  undergone  by  bodies  lately  ani- 
mate, and  slowly  undergone  by  inanimate  masses,  re- 
mains to  be  undergone  at  an  indefinitely  remote  period 
by  each  planetary  and  stellar  mass,  which,  since  an  in- 
definitely remote  period  in  the  past,  has  been  slowly 
evolving:  the  cycle  of  its  transformations  being  thus 
completed. 

14.  This  rhythm  of  evolution  and  dissolution,  com- 
pleting itself  during  short  periods  in  small  aggregates, 
and  in  the  vast  aggregates  distributed  through  space 
completing  itself  in  periods  which  are  immeasurable  by 
human  thought,  is,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  universal  and 
eternal :  each  alternating  phase  of  the  process  predomi- 
nating— now  in  this  region  of  space,  and  now  in  that — 
as  local  conditions  determine. 

15.  All  these  phenomena,  from  their  great  features 
down  to  their  minutest  details,  are  necessary  results 
of  the  persistence  of  force  under  its  forms  of  matter 
and  motion.     Given  these  in  their  known  distributions 
through  space,  and,  their  quantities  being  unchangeable, 


93  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

either  by  increase  or  decrease,  there  inevitably  result  the 
continuous  redistributions  distinguishable  as  evolution 
and  dissolution,  as  well  as  all  those  special  traits  above 
enumerated. 

16.  That  which  persists,  unchanging  in  quantity  but 
ever  changing  in  form,  under  these  sensible  appearances 
which  the  universe  presents  to  us,  transcends  human 
knowledge  and  conception;  is  an  unknown  and  un- 
knowable power,  which  we  are  obliged  to  recognize  as 
without  limit  in  space,  and  without  beginning  or  end  in 
time. 

VI. 

The  whole  body  of  philosophy,  or  completely-uni- 
fied knowledge,  Mr.  Spencer  divides  into  two  parts: 
"  On  the  one  hand,  the  things  contemplated  may  be  the 
universal  truths :  all  particular  truths  referred  to  being 
used  simply  for  proof  or  elucidation  of  these  universal 
truths.  On  the  other  hand,  setting  out  with  the  uni- 
versal truths  as  granted,  the  things  contemplated  may 
be  the  particular  truths  as  interpreted  by  them.  In 
both  cases  we  deal  with  the  universal  truths ;  but  in  the 
one  case  they  are  passive  and  in  the  other  case  active — 
in  the  one  case  they  form  the  products  of  exploration 
and  in  the  other  case  the  instruments  of  exploration. 
These  divisions  we  may  appropriately  call  General  Phi- 
losophy and  Special  Philosophy  respectively."*  Gen- 
eral Philosophy  forms  the  subject-matter  of  First  Prin- 

*  First  Principles,  §  38. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  99 

ciples ;  the  subsequent  volumes  of  the  Synthetic  Series 
are  devoted  to  the  task  of  applying  the  universal  truths 
there  formulated  to  the  particular  phenomena  of  Biol- 
ogy, Psychology,  Sociology,  and  Ethics. 

Some  of  the  most  striking  features  of  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's treatment  of  the  two  last-named  subjects  will  be 
touched  upon  in  the  following  chapters — their  more 
obviously  practical  bearings  justifying  this  special  treat- 
ment. A  word  or  two  may  here  be  given  to  the  earlier 
portions  of  the  work. 

The  aim  of  the  Principles  of  Biology  was,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  himself  stated  in  the  preface,  "  to  set  forth  the 
general  truths  of  biology  as  illustrative  of  and  as  inter- 
preted by  the  laws  of  evolution."  Students  of  these 
two  volumes  have  need  to  bear  in  mind  that  they  were 
written  and  published  at  a  time  when  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  evolution  was  still  under  fierce  discussion,  and 
when  even  the  scientific  world  itself  was  divided  into 
hostile  camps  over  every  issue  involved.  Hence  the 
special  historic  significance,  over  and  above  the  general 
philosophic  significance,  of  Part  III,  dealing  with  the 
arguments  in  favour  of  the  development-hypothesis, 
and  with  the  factors  of  organic  evolution.  Beyond  this, 
little  needs  to  be  said  by  way  of  introduction  to  the 
work.  Particular  attention  should,  however,  be  di- 
rected to  the  closing  division,  in  which  the  supremely 
important  question  of  the  laws  of  multiplication  and 
their  corollaries  is  treated  at  length. 

This  question  has  had  special  significance  for  stu- 


100         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

dents  and  thinkers  since  about  the  close  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. One  remarkable  outgrowth  of  the  generous  ardour 
and  noble  enthusiasms  which  accompanied  the  earlier 
developments  of  the  French  Eevolution  was  the  strong 
belief  in  human  perfectibility  which  suddenly  took 
possession  of  some  of  the  finest  minds  of  the  age.  It 
seemed  only  necessary  to  throw  off  the  numerous  polit- 
ical and  social  shackles  of  the  past,  to  get  rid  of  the 
tyrannies  of  kingcraft  and  priestcraft  and  aristocracies, 
and  to  break  the  fetters  of  degrading  forms  and  customs 
that  had  been  handed  down  from  the  past ;  it  seemed 
only  necessary,  in  a  word,  to  give  men  and  women  free 
play,  and  the  brightest  dreams,  the  most  glorious  imag- 
inings of  poet  and  seer  would  turn  forthwith  into  still 
brighter,  still  more  glorious  realities.  Something  of  the 
intense  thrill  of  this  great  new  hope  we  can  catch  in  the 
earlier  books  of  Wordsworth's  Prelude ;  as  in  the  later 
books  we  come  into  immediate  touch  with  that  numb- 
ing sense  of  disappointment  and  abject  despair  which 
settled  down  over  the  consciousness  of  the  world  when 
it  was  realized  that  France  had  indeed  failed  to  make 
good  the  magnificent  promises  of  1789.  We  know 
how  that  practical  failure  brought  the  whole  doctrine 
of  human  progress  for  a  time  into  disrepute :  such 
a  work  as  Chateaubriand's  Essai  sur  les  Be  volutions 
Anciennes  et  Modernes  being  simply  one  indication  of 
a  widespread  reaction  in  thought.  Meanwhile,  express- 
ive as  it  may  now  well  seem  to  us  to  be  of  this  sad 
change  from  sanguine  expectation  to  doubt  and  de- 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  101 

spondency,  appeared  in  1798  the  first  edition  of  one  of 
the  world's  epoch-marking,  if  not  epoch-making,  books 
— Malthus's  essay  on  The  Principle  of  Population.*  The 
central  doctrine  of  that  book — the  work,  strangely 
enough,  of  an  English  clergyman  of  the  Established 
Church — struck  a  deadly  blow  at  the  gorgeous  specu- 
lations of  humanitarian  dreamers.  The  earthly  Eden 
which  men  had  declared  to  be  at  hand  was  now  pro- 
nounced an  impossibility.  For  Malthus  showed  con- 
clusively, as  it  seemed  to  himself  and  to  many  others  of 
his  and  later  times,  that  the  world  is  and  always  must 
be  overpopulated,  and  that  the  pressure  of  humanity 
upon  the  means  of  subsistence  is  not  an  accident  but  a 
necessity.  If,  therefore,  it  is  inevitable  that  human  be- 
ings should  increase  much  more  rapidly  than  their 
sustenance,  misery  in  one  form  or  the  other  is  a  neces- 
sary accompaniment  of  human  life  ;  and  wholesale  death 
by  mere  starvation  is  only  prevented  by  the  operation 
of  other  factors  which  have  hitherto  combined  to  pre- 
vent population  from  running  too  far  in  advance  of  its 


*  "  There  is  nothing  new  but  what  has  been  forgotten,"  says  a 
clever  French  paradox.  For  the  sake  of  those  interested  in  what 
Buckle  called  the  "  paternity  of  ideas,"  it  may  be  pointed  out  that, 
original  as  the  work  of  Malthus  seemed  to  be,  he  was  not  without 
predecessors  in  his  own  chosen  field.  One  Townsend,  in  an  ac- 
count of  a  journey  through  Spain,  had  already  broached  the  prob- 
lem of  the  relation  of  human  population  to  the  means  of  support ; 
and  even  he  had  a  precursor  in  that  great  writer  who  foreshadowed 
so  many  peculiarly  modern  ideas — Voltaire.  (See  the  article  Popu- 
lation in  his  Dictionnaire  Philosophique.) 


102         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

material  of  support.  Let  progressive  civilization  inter- 
fere with  these  factors,  as  it  constantly  tends  to  do — 
let  it  decrease  wars,  plagues,  excessive  and  premature 
mortality,  vices  of  various  kinds,  and  forced  or  voluntary 
celibacy — and  upon  the  removal  of  these  manifold  and 
hitherto  stringent  preventive  checks  a  universal  battle 
for  life  would  ensue.  Hence  it  is  useless  to  indulge  in 
lyric  enthusiasms  about  the  reign  of  plenty  and  the 
kingdom  of  peace  and  love  upon  earth.  The  reign  of 
plenty  is  a  myth,  the  kingdom  of  peace  and  love  an  airy 
fiction.  An  everlasting  and  inevitable  want  of  balance 
between  human  population  and  its  means  of  support  is 
the  one  firm  and  overpowering  reality.* 

Malthus's  book  came  upon  the  world  with  the  blight 
of  disillusion.  Its  conclusions  were  widely  accepted ; 
its  theories  passed  into  the  economist's  recognized  body 
of  thought.  And  now  we  are  in  a  position  to  appreciate 
the  importance  of  Mr.  Spencer's  contribution  to  the  dis- 


*  How  pregnant  were  Malthus's  speculations  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  in  this  essay  of  his  that  we  find  the  starting-point  of 
Darwin's  own  development  of  thought — the  development  which 
presently  culminated  in  the  Origin  of  Species.  Given  this  univer- 
sal overpopulation,  and  it  is  clear  that  wholesale  destruction  must 
be  all  the  time  at  work.  As  animals  and  plants  are  thus  per- 
petually tending  to  increase  faster  than  their  means  of  sustenance, 
a  struggle  among  them  must  result ;  and  in  this  struggle  those 
individuals  of  every  species  are  likely  to  conquer  and  survive 
which  are  equipped  for  the  conflict  by  even  the  most  minute 
variations  favouring  them  in  gaining  food  and  avoiding  enemies. 
(See  Darwin's  own  introduction  to  the  sixth  edition  of  the  Origin 
of  Species.) 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  103 

cussion  of  the  general  subject  in  the  chapters  referred 
to.  A  profound  investigation  of  the  whole  question  of 
multiplication,  asexual  and  sexual,  subhuman  and  hu- 
man, leads  him  to  the  conclusion,  established  as  usual 
inductively  and  deductively,  that  while  excess  of  fertility 
has  been  and  is  the  cause  of  man's  evolution,  every  fresh 
step  in  that  evolution  itself  necessitates  in  its  turn  a 
decline  in  fertility.  That  human  population  will  for- 
ever continue  to  press  upon  the  means  of  human  sub- 
sistence, as  Malthus  supposed,  is  therefore  not  a  fact. 
Individuation  and  genesis  are  in  necessary  antagonism, 
and  advance  in  the  former  must  be  followed  by  decrease 
in  the  latter.  Fecundity  is  thus  not  a  permanent  factor, 
as  is  implied  in  the  Malthusian  view,  and  pressure  of 
population  and  its  accompanying  evils,  instead  of  remain- 
ing the  one  problem  to  be  encountered  all  along  the  line 
of  human  progress,  must  gradually  work  itself  out  alto- 
gether. "  The  excess  of  fertility  has  itself  rendered  the 
process  of  civilization  inevitable ;  and  the  process  of 
civilization  must  inevitably  diminish  fertility,  and  at 
last  destroy  its  excess.  From  the  beginning  pressure  of 
population  has  been  the  proximate  cause  of  progress. 
It  produced  the  original  diffusion  of  the  race.  It  com- 
pelled men  to  abandon  predatory  habits  and  take  to 
agriculture.  It  led  to  the  clearing  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face. It  forced  men  into  the  social  state ;  made  social 
organization  inevitable ;  and  has  developed  the  social 
sentiments.  It  has  stimulated  to  progressive  improve- 
ments in  production  and  to  increased  skill  in  intelli- 


104         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

geuce.  It  is  daily  thrusting  us  into  closer  contact  and 
more  mutually  dependent  relationships.  And  after  hav- 
ing caused,  as  it  ultimately  must,  the  due  peopling  of 
the  globe,  and  the  raising  of  all  its  habitable  parts  into 
the  highest  state  of  culture — after  having  brought  all 
processes  for  the  satisfaction  of  human  wants  to  perfec- 
tion— after  having,  at  the  same  time,  developed  the  in- 
tellect into  complete  competency  for  its  work,  and  the 
feelings  into  complete  fitness  for  social  life — after  hav- 
ing done  all  this,  the  pressure  of  population,  as  it  grad- 
ually finishes  its  work,  must  gradually  bring  itself  to  an 
end."  * 

Thus,  in  the  hands  of  the  evolutionary  philosopher, 
the  Malthusian  doctrine  loses  all  its  gloom  and  terror. 
He,  in  Emerson's  phrase,  has  here,  as  so  often  else- 
where, converted  "  the  Furies  into  Muses  and  the  hells 
into  benefit." 

VII. 

Many  competent  critics  have  regarded  the  Principles 
of  Psychology  as  Mr.  Spencer's  greatest  achievement, 
and  not,  perhaps,  without  good  cause.  Nowhere  else, 
certainly,  could  we  find  a  more  striking  exhibition  of 
his  magnificent  powers  of  both  analysis  and  synthesis, 
of  his  clear  perception  of  the  significance  of  minutest 
details,  of  his  daring  sweep  of  generalization  and  de- 
duction, of  his  firm  control  over  the  longest  and  most 

*  Principles  of  Biology,  §  376. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  105 

intricate  chains  of  reasoning.  To  the  phenomena  of  no 
other  subject,  it  may  be  added,  have  evolutionary  prin- 
ciples been  applied  with  more  conspicuous  results. 

The  old  psychology  had  been  purely  statical.  Its 
subject-matter  had  been  the  manifestations  of  intelli- 
gence in  the  modern  civilized  adult;  and  a  hard-and- 
fast  line  of  demarkation  had  been  drawn  between  these 
and  all  the  manifestations  of  intelligence  exhibited  by 
the  subhuman  world.  Mind  in  man  was  held  to  differ 
absolutely  and  generically  from  mind  in  animals ;  and 
no  study  of  the  latter  could  be  resorted  to  in  the  hope 
of  throwing  light  upon  the  problems  of  the  former. 
The  foolish  antithesis  of  instinct  and  reason  is  a  sturdy 
survival  of  this  old  thought.  This  traditional  course, 
followed  unquestioningly  from  generation  to  generation, 
and  by  school  after  school  of  metaphysicians,  had  natu- 
rally carried  the  subject  of  psychology  but  little  be- 
yond the  point  reached  by  the  fantastic  speculations  of 
mediseval  scholasticism.  Evolution  offered  the  student 
an  entirely  new  standpoint.  Its  great  principle  of  the 
continuity  of  all  phenomena,  applied  to  the  problems  of 
intelligence,  showed  that  all  absolute  distinctions,  here 
as  elsewhere,  were  mere  subjective  illusions.  Between 
mind  in  its  highest  development  and  mind  in  its  first 
dim  awakenings  no  boundary  could  anywhere  be  set; 
and  the  complex  intellect  of  the  modern  adult,  so  far 
from  being  treated  as  a  thing  unique  and  apart,  had 
thus  henceforth  to  be  regarded  as  the  production  of  the 
compounding  and  recompounding  of  simpler  and  still 


106         PHILOSOPHY   OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

simpler  elements.  Given  the  nervous  shock,*  which 
Mr.  Spencer  distinguishes  as  the  primordial  and  unre- 
solvable  element  in  consciousness,  and  the  business  of 
scientific  psychology  is  to  follow  the  process  of  progress- 
ive integration,  step  by  step,  through  sensation,  reflex 
action,  instinct,  memory,  reason,  the  feelings,  and  the 
will.  But  more  than  this :  the  principle  of  continuity 
further  warns  us  against  any  attempt  to  fix  a  barrier  be- 
tween physiological  and  psychological  phenomena.  The 
manifestations  of  physical  and  mental  activity  have  also 
their  unity  of  composition.  "  The  life  of  the  body  and 
mental  life  are  species,  of  which  life,  properly  so  called, 
is  the  genus."  "  Though  we  commonly  regard  mental 
and  bodily  life  as  distinct,  it  needs  only  to  ascend  some- 
what above  the  ordinary  point  of  view  to  see  that  they 
are  but  subdivisions  of  life  in  general,  and  that  no  line 
of  demarkation  can  be  drawn  between  them  otherwise 
than  arbitrarily.  Doubtless  to  those  who  persist  after 
the  popular  fashion  in  contemplating  only  the  extreme 
forms  of  the  two,  this  assertion  will  appear  incredible. 


*  Such  is  the  word  employed  by  Mr.  Spencer,  but  he  strictly 
means  psychical  shock.  Anxious  as  he  was  throughout  his  argu- 
ment to  keep  the  psychical  phenomena  distinct  from  their  phys- 
ical accompaniments,  it  is  a  little  curious  that  he  should  have 
slipped  into  such  a  careless  use  of  the  word  "nervous" — a  word 
that  threatens  to  blur  the  whole  issue.  (See  on  this  point  the  very 
interesting  note  on  page  444  of  volume  ii  of  Mr.  Fiske's  Cosmic 
Philosophy.)  Mr.  Fiske  ventured  to  change  the  unfortunate  word 
to  "  psychical,"  and  adds  that  Mr.  Spencer  authorized  him  to  say 
that  in  so  doing  he  had  his  concurrence. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  107 

.  .  .  [But]  it  is  not  more  certain  that,  from  the  simple 
reflex  action  by  which  the  infant  sucks,  up  to  the  elabo- 
rate reasoning  of  the  adult  man,  the  progress  is  by 
daily  infinitesimal  steps,  than  it  is  certain  that  between 
the  automatic  actions  of  the  lowest  creatures  and  the 
highest  conscious  actions  of  the  human  race  a  series  of 
actions  displayed  by  the  various  tribes  of  the  animal 
kingdom  may  be  so  placed  as  to  render  it  impossible  to 
say  of  any  one  step  in  the  series,  Here  intelligence 
begins."  * 

The  method  of  investigation  that  evolution  has  thus 
rendered  possible  has  achieved,  along  with  many  other 
splendid  triumphs,  one  very  notable  success.  It  has 
effected  a  permanent  compromise  between  two  great 
antagonistic  schools  of  psychology — the  experimental- 
ists and  the  transcendentalists,  or  the  followers  of  Locke 
on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  Leibnitz  and  Kant  on 
the  other.  This  famous  dispute,  which  antedated  by 
centuries  the  celebrated  philosophers  with  whose  names 
it  is  generally  associated,  and  which,  before  the  rise  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution,  promised  to  be  perennial, 
concerned  the  nature  of  the  human  faculty.  "  All  our 
knowledge  is  derived  from  experience,"  was  the  funda- 
mental dictum  of  the  empiricists.  "  On  the  contrary,"  re- 
plied their  opponents,  "we  possess  ideas  which  transcend 


*  These  quotations  from  the  first  edition  of  the  Principles  of 
Psychology  are  given  here  because  they  serve  our  immediate  pur- 
pose somewhat  better  than  the  revised  statements  of  the  same 
ideas  to  be  found  in  the  later  editions  of  the  work. 


108         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

experience — which  are  innate."  Mr.  Spencer,  approach- 
ing the  whole  question  from  the  evolutionary  side,  saw 
that  the  controversy  from  first  to  last  was  a  controversy 
of  partial  views.  The  weakness  of  each  system  was  that 
it  accepted  a  portion  of  the  truth  for  the  entire  truth. 
To  say  that,  antecedent  to  experience,  the  mind  is  an 
absolute  blank,  is,  as  he  pointed  out,  to  ignore  the  all- 
essential  questions,  "  Whence  comes  the  power  of  organ- 
izing experiences?  whence  arise  the  different  degrees 
of  that  power  possessed  by  different  races  of  organisms 
and  different  individuals  of  the  same  race  ?  "  *  But  is 
this  to  throw  up  the  empirical  case  altogether  ?  Not  at 
all.  The  pre-established  internal  relations,  of  the  in- 
nateness  of  which  so  much  is  made  by  the  idealists,  if 
transcendent  to  the  experiences  of  the  individual,  are 
not  transcendent  to  that  vast  chain  of  ancestral  experi- 
ence, running  back  through  ages  of  barbarism  and  ani- 
mality  to  the  lowest  beginnings  of  life,  of  which  the 
present  individual  is  only  the  terminal  link.  The  mo- 
ment the  venue  of  discussion  was  changed  from  the  lim- 
ited area  of  individual  experience  to  the  immeasurable 
area  of  universal  experience  the  ancient  difficulty  van- 
ished. We  no  longer  quarrel  over  the  so-called  "  forms 
of  thought,"  and  the  question  of  relative  potential  in- 
tellectuality becomes  clear.  Of  a  surety  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  is  a  great  healer  of  philosophic  discords, 
and,  since  it  is  notorious  that  philosophic  discords  have 

*  Principles  of  Psychology,  §  208. 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  1Q9 

been  almost  as  fierce  and  sanguinary  as  controversies  in 
the  theological  arena,  it  should  receive  a  generous  meed 
of  the  blessing  promised  to  peacemakers. 

A  word  of  warning  must  be  added  ere  we  close  these 
few  paragraphs  on  the  Spencerian  psychology. 

A  superficial  reading  of  what  has  just  been  written 
concerning  the  continuity  of  phenomena  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  drawing  any  dividing  line  between  physio- 
logical and  psychical  life  might  only  too  easily  lead  the 
unwary  student  to  conclude  that  Mr.  Spencer's  doctrines 
end  in  materialism  pure  and  simple.  This,  indeed,  is 
the  popular  view  of  the  matter  held  to  with  obstinate 
tenacity  despite  continual  protest  and  repeated  disproof. 
Yet  on  no  point  has  Mr.  Spencer  endeavoured  to  make 
himself  more  explicit.  Already  in  the  concluding  para- 
graphs of  First  Principles  he  did  his  utmost  to  show  that 
the  arguments  contained  in  that  work  lend  no  support 
whatever  to  either  of  the  current  antagonistic  views 
respecting  the  ultimate  nature  of  things.  "  Their  im- 
plications are  no  more  materialistic  than  they  are  spir- 
itualistic ;  and  no  more  spiritualistic  than  they  are  ma- 
terialistic," he  asserts ;  since  our  antithetic  conceptions 
of  spirit  and  matter,  necessary  as  they  must  seem  to  us, 
are  still  nothing  more  than  symbols  of  the  Unknown 
Eeality  which  underlies  both.  Developing  this  truth 
more  fully  in  the  Principles  of  Psychology,  he  thus  de- 
clares himself  in  the  chapter  on  the  Substance  of  Mind 
(§63):  "Here  .  .  .  we  arrive  at  the  barrier  which  needs 
to  be  perpetually  pointed  out,  alike  to  those  who  seek 


HO         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

materialistic  explanations  of  mental  phenomena,  and  to 
those  who  are  alarmed  lest  such  explanations  may  be 
found.  This  last  class  prove  by  their  fear,  almost  as 
much  as  the  first  prove  by  their  hope,  that  they  believe 
Mind  may  possibly  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  Matter ; 
whereas  many  whom  they  vituperate  as  materialists  are 
profoundly  convinced  that  there  is  not  the  remotest  pos- 
sibility of  so  interpreting  them.  For  those  who,  not 
deterred  by  foregone  conclusions,  have  pushed  their 
analysis  to  the  uttermost  see  very  clearly,  that  the  con- 
cept we  form  to  ourselves  of  Matter  is  but  the  symbol 
of  some  form  of  power  absolutely  and  forever  unknown 
to  us ;  and  a  symbol  which  we  cannot  suppose  to  be 
like  the  reality  without  involving  ourselves  in  contra- 
dictions (First  Principles,  §  16).  They  also  see  that  the 
representation  of  all  objective  activities  in  terms  of 
Motion  is  but  a  representation  of  them,  and  not  a 
knowledge  of  them ;  and  that  we  are  immediately 
brought  to  alternative  absurdities  if  we  assume  the 
Power  manifested  to  us  as  Motion,  to  be  in  itself  that 
which  we  conceive  as  Motion  (First  Principles,  §  17). 
When  with  these  conclusions  that  Matter  and  Motion, 
as  we  think  them,  are  but  symbolic  of  unknowable 
forms  of  existence,  we  join  the  conclusion  lately  reached 
that  Mind  also  is  unknowable,  and  that  the  simplest 
form  under  which  we  can  think  of  its  substance  is  but 
a  symbol  of  something  that  can  never  be  rendered  into 
thought;  we  see  that  the  whole  question  is  at  last 
nothing  more  than  the  question  whether  these  symbols 


THE  SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY.  HI 

i 

should  be  expressed  in  terms  of  those  or  those  in  terms 
of  these — a  question  scarcely  worth  deciding,  since  either 
answer  leaves  us  as  completely  outside  of  the  reality  as 
we  were  at  first." 

How  thoroughly  unmaterialistic  is  Mr.  Spencer's 
whole  view  of  the  question  is  made  manifest  by  the 
paragraph  immediately  following  the  one  from  which 
the  above  extract  is  taken.  Here  he  distinctly  says, 
once  and  for  all,  "that  were  we  compelled  to  choose 
between  the  alternatives  of  translating  mental  phenom- 
ena into  physical  phenomena,  or  of  translating  physical 
phenomena  into  mental  phenomena,  the  latter  alterna- 
tive would  seem  the  more  acceptable  of  the  two."  He 
proceeds  to  give,  in  the  course  of  a  long  and  weighty 
paragraph,  his  reasons  for  this  assertion ;  and  conclud- 
ing that  "of  the  two  it  seems  easier  to  translate  so- 
called  Matter  into  so-called  Spirit,  than  to  translate  so- 
called  Spirit  into  so-called  Matter  (which  latter  is,  indeed, 
wholly  impossible),"  he  reminds  us  that  "  no  translation 
can  carry  us  beyond  our  symbols."  After  this,  only  the 
familiar  ignorance,  carelessness,  and  perversity  of  the 
general  religious  world  can  explain  the  fact  that  even 
to-day  Mr.  Spencer's  teachings  are  frequently  denounced 
as  "  materialistic."  It  is  surprising  how  often  the  short- 
sightedness of  the  theologians  has  led  them  to  treat 
with  antagonism  men  who,  if  they  only  knew  it,  should 
rather  be  reckoned  among  the  truest  friends  of  religion. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   SPENSERIAN   SOCIOLOGY. 
I. 

MR.  SPENCER'S  social  and  political  teachings  are 
familiar  enough  in  their  main  outlines  to  readers  who 
otherwise  know  little  or  nothing  of  his  works.  The 
most  popularly  written  and  widely  circulated  of  his 
books — the  Education  alone  excepted — are  those  which 
deal  directly  with  the  problems  arising  from  the  rela- 
tions of  citizens  to  government  and  to  one  another.  In 
the  pages  of  Social  Statics,  the  Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  Sociology,  and  The  Man  versus  The  State, 
these  problems  in  their  multifarious  aspects  are  handled 
with  rare  force,  clearness,  and  felicity  of  illustration ; 
and  though  first  principles  are  kept  in  view  throughout, 
and  are  shown  to  constitute  the  firm  foundation  of 
every  doctrine  advanced — though  in  this  way  philo- 
sophic coherence  and  consistency  are  given  to  every 
chain  of  reasoning — the  popular  standpoint  is  that 
adopted ;  the  arguments  are  directed  rather  to  the  gen- 
eral reader  than  to  the  special  student.  By  the  larger 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  H3 

public,  therefore,  Mr.  Spencer's  individualistic  theories 
are  accepted  or  rejected  without  any  thought  of  their 
relation  to  his  philosophic  system  as  a  whole ;  how  they 
fall  into  the  body  of  his  work,  and  what  exact  place 
they  occupy  there,  are  questions  that  seldom  come  up 
for  consideration. 

This  is  the  more  natural  because,  even  when  we 
have  grown  tired,  as  Zschokke  put  it,  of  "  living  in  the 
furnished  lodgings  of  tradition,"  very  few  of  us  have 
thought  out  for  ourselves  a  systematized  theory  of  life. 
We  have  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  our  ideas  (usually 
more  correctly  to  be  described  as  our  impressions) 
about  most  things ;  and  the  less  we  understand  of  a 
subject  the  stronger  our  assertions  of  opinion  are  likely 
to  be.  But  these  ideas  rarely  hang  together  among 
themselves — are  rarely  attached  to  any  deep  underlying 
principles.  Their  roots  run  down  into  the  emotions; 
they  draw  their  nourishment  thence ;  and  some  accident 
of  early  education,  environment,  self-interest,  or  class- 
bias,  gives  them,  unknown  to  ourselves,  their  special 
form  and  colour.  It  is  curious  in  studying  our  friends 
— we  are  hardly  likely  to  observe  the  inconsistencies  in 
ourselves — to  find,  in  consequence,  what  a  strange  jum- 
ble of  contradictory  notions  the  majority  of  them  man- 
age to  find  room  for,  without  for  a  moment  seeming  to 
imperil  thereby  their  self-satisfaction  or  peace  of  mind. 
The  assertive  radical,  brought  face  to  face  with  some 
novel  form  of  an  old  question,  unexpectedly  develops  a 
rabid  conservatism;  the  bigoted  conservative  advocates 


114         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

on  some  special  isolated  point  doctrines  which,  applied 
to  other  and  perhaps  more  familiar  issues,  he  would  look 
upon  with  horror.  Men  who  are  urging  the  world  for- 
ward in  one  direction  are  holding  it  back  in  others; 
and  the  gospels  of  yesterday  and  to-morrow  are  pro- 
claimed in  one  breath  by  the  same  preacher.  Few 
realize  the  absurdity  of  all  this ;  few  are  aware  of  the 
anarchy  of  thought  and  incongruity  of  social  aims  to 
which  it  must  inevitably  give  rise ;  fewer  still,  perhaps, 
understand  that  it  is  due  to  the  absence  in  most  men — 
even  in  those  of  general  intelligence  and  more  than 
average  culture — of  a  methodical  habit  of  thought,  and 
the  guiding  power  of  some  great  central  principles,  to 
the  touchstone  of  which  every  judgment  and  opinion 
may  be  brought. 

Caring  nothing  for  the  consistency  of  their  own 
ideas,  most  readers  would  naturally  fail  to  inquire  into 
the  consistency  of  the  ideas  of  other  people.  Hence 
they  are  willing  to  deal  with  that  one  department  of  the 
Spencerian  thought  which  happens  to  come  under  their 
particular  notice  without  troubling  to  raise  the  question 
of  its  connection  with  other  departments.  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's individualism  may  or  may  not  organically  belong 
to  and  of  necessity  grow  out  of  the  principles  of  evolu- 
tion as  by  him  expounded  ;  but,  while  they  will  discuss 
the  individualism  itself,  this  is  the  last  matter  that  is 
likely  to  attract  their  attention.  Hence  it  is  precisely 
this  point  we  propose  to  deal  with  here.  To  expound 
Mr.  Spencer's  social  and  political  views  in  their  practi- 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  H5 

cal  applications  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation ;  to 
discuss  them  would  lie  outside  the  scope  of  a  volume 
like  the  present.  But  to  show  how  these  views  affiliate 
upon  the  main  body  of  his  thought  will  be  to  carry  out 
to  the  full  the  plan  of  this  introduction.* 

II. 

The  once-famous  saying  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh, 
that  "  constitutions  are  not  made,  but  grow,"  struck  the 
men  of  his  time  as  singularly  original  and  suggestive ; 
but,  as  Mr.  Spencer  says,  "  in  our  day,  the  most  signifi- 
cant thing"  about  it  is  "that  it  was  ever  thought  so 
significant."  Not  only  has  the  principle  enunciated  in 
it  long  since  passed  into  a  commonplace,  but  from  the 
evolutionary  standpoint  we  all  now  see  that  it  forms  but 
a  small  portion  of  a  much  larger  truth.  Under  all  its 
aspects  and  through  all  its  ramifications  society  itself  is 
a  thing  of  slow  and  natural  development,  not  of  artifi- 
cial piecing  together— a  growth  and  not  a  manufacture. 
This  means  that  it  must  be  dealt  with  not  as  a  mechan- 
ism, but  as  a  living  thing. 

The  comparison  between  society  and  an  individual 
organism  had  been  instituted  before  Mr.  Spencer's  time, 

*  There  is  the  more  need  to  do  this,  first,  because  many  other- 
wise loyal  adherents  of  Spencerianism  refuse  to  follow  their 
teacher  into  the  extremes  of  his  political  thought ;  and,  secondly, 
because  of  the  opinion,  widely  diffused  among  them,  that  his  so- 
cial doctrines,  espoused  long  before  the  working  out  of  his  general 
system,  have  since  been  cleverly  dovetailed  into  that  system,  and 
form  no  proper  part  of  it. 


116         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

but  in  a  way  too  vague  for  it  to  be  productive  of  much 
result.  Mr.  Spencer,  in  taking  the  matter  up  among 
his  earlier  studies,  endeavoured  to  do  something  more 
than  point  out  more  or  less  fanciful  analogies.  Utiliz- 
ing the  comprehensive  generalizations  of  modern  biolo- 
gy, he  undertook  to  indicate  the  real  parallelisms.* 

These,  summarized  in  the  succinctest  possible  state- 
ments, are  shown  to  be  four  in  number : 

1.  Commencing  as  small  aggregations,  both  societies 
and  individual  organisms  insensibly  augment  in  mass, 
in  some  instances  eventually  reaching  a  bulk  ten  thou- 
sand times  greater  than  their  original  size. 

2.  At  first  so  simple  in  structure  as  to  be  considered 
structureless,  both   societies  and  individual   organisms 
assume  in  the  course  of  their  growth  a  continually  in- 
creasing complexity  of  structure. 

3.  In  a  society  in  its  early  undeveloped  state,  as  in 
an  individual  organism  in  its  early  and  undeveloped 
state,  there  exists  scarcely  any  mutual   dependence  of 
parts ;  in  both  cases  the  parts  gradually  acquire  a  mutual 
dependence,  and  this  becomes  at  last  so  great  that  the 
life  and  activity  of  each  part  are  made  possible  only  by 
the  life  and  activity  of  the  rest. 

4.  The  life  and  development  of  a  society,  like  the 


*  These  parallelisms,  outlined  in  the  article  on  The  Social  Or- 
ganism (first  published  in  the  Westminster  Review  for  January, 
I860),  were  subsequently  worked  out  in  detail  in  The  Principles 
of  Sociology,  Part  II.  See  also  the  essay  on  Specialized  Adminis- 
tration. 


THE  SPEXCER1AN  SOCIOLOGY.  H7 

life  and  development  of  an  individual  organism,  are  in- 
dependent of  and  far  more  prolonged  than  the  life  and 
development  of  any  of  its  component  units,  who  sever- 
ally are  born,  grow,  reproduce,  and  die,  while  the  body 
politic  composed  of  them  survives  generation  after  gen- 
eration, increasing  in  mass,  completeness  of  structure, 
and  functional  activity. 

Consideration  of  these  striking  parallelisms  will  re- 
veal the  fact  that  the  most  important  of  them — the  sec- 
ond and  third  in  the  above  tabulation — present  elements 
that  bring  the  growth  of  society  directly  under  the  gen- 
eral law  of  evolution.  Societies,  like  individual  organ- 
isms, pass,  during  the  course  of  their  development,  from 
simplicity  to  complexity  of  structure,  at  the  same  time 
that  their  various  parts  gradually  acquire  greater  and 
greater  mutual  dependence  ;  in  other  words,  the  changes 
undergone  by  them  are  in  the  direction  at  once  of  in- 
creasing heterogeneity  and  of  increasing  unity.  And  it 
may  be  remarked  incidentally  that  no  more  conspicuous 
illustrations  of  the  formula  of  evolution  can  be  found 
than  those  furnished  by  the  study  of  social  growth. 
Barbarous  tribes,  lowest  in  the  scale  of  development, 
are  nothing  but  loose,  almost  homogeneous  aggregations 
of  individuals  and  families,  living  in  contiguity,  but 
hardly  at  all  depending  one  upon  the  other.  Powers 
and  functions  are  practically  alike,  the  only  marked 
differences  being  those  which  accompany  difference  of 
sex.  "  Every  man  is  warrior,  hunter,  fisherman,  tool- 
maker,  builder ;  every  woman  performs  the  same  drudg- 


118         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

eries  " — that  is,  there  is  as  yet  no  specialization  of  parts ; 
and  at  the  same  time  "  every  family  is  self-sufficing,  and, 
save  for  purposes  of  aggression  and  defence,  might  as 
well  live  apart  from  the  rest" — there  is  little  or  no 
mutual  dependence.  Very  early,  however,  important 
changes  manifest  themselves.  Differentiation  begins. 
With  the  appearance  of  some  kind  of  chieftainship  arises 
distinction  between  the  governing  and  the  governed; 
and  as  this  distinction  grows  more  and  more  decided, 
the  controlling  agencies  gradually  break  up,  and  in 
course  of  time  assume  the  form  of  the  highly  complex 
political  organizations  of  semi-civilized  and  civilized 
lands.  Meanwhile  the  accompanying  industrial  diver- 
gencies are  even  more  significant.  Individuals,  no  longer 
continuing  to  perform  for  themselves  all  the  functions 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  their  own  lives  and  the 
lives  of  those  immediately  connected  with  them,  begin 
to  devote  themselves  to  separate  kinds  of  occupation ; 
whence  arise  the  first  suggestions  of  that  industrial  spe- 
cialization which  has  been  carried  to  such  an  extreme 
in  our  own  day,  and  which  with  every  year  is  tending 
to  become  more  marked.  But  one  all-important  fact 
must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  These  changes  along  the 
line  of  ever-increasing  heterogeneity  can  only  go  on  step 
by  step,  in  combination  with  corresponding  changes 
along  the  line  of  ever-increasing  integration.  The  gov- 
erning agency  can  only  assume  the  labours  and  respon- 
sibilities of  oversight,  guidance,  and  direction  by  being 
relieved,  to  a  degree  proportionate  to  the  demand  of 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  H9 

these  upon  it,  of  the  daily  strain  of  providing  for  its 
own  wants.  Regulative  and  maintaining  agencies  can 
only  thus  become  distinct.  Similarly  with  the  indus- 
trial changes  themselves.  As  soon  as  any  one  individual 
limits  himself  to  the  performance  of  one  particular  life- 
sustaining  function,  for  which  he  may  possess  unusual 
aptitude,  he  must  necessarily  become  dependent  upon 
the  rest  of  the  community  to  the  extent  of  the  functions 
left  unfulfilled  by  him ;  while  he  performs  certain  func- 
tions in  excess,  and  thereby  benefits  others,  others  must 
also  perform  functions  in  excess  for  his  benefit.  Hence, 
it  is  clear  that,  if  society  is  to  maintain  its  corporate 
life,  no  differentiation  can  take  place  without  integra- 
tion ;  increase  of  specialization  in  social  changes  is  not 
only  accompanied  by  increase  of  mutual  dependence, 
but  is  absolutely  impossible  without  it. 

From  the  first  stages  of  social  growth  to  the  develop- 
ments recorded  in  yesterday's  newspaper,  what  we  call 
progress  has  everywhere  been  marked  by  the  same  char- 
acteristics. All  changes  in  the  line  of  advance  have 
been  changes  rendering  the  social  structure  more  com- 
plex while  increasing  its  organic  unity ;  and  this  double- 
sided  movement  has  by  this  time  gone  so  far  that  we 
are  to-day  witnessing  its  effects  in  the  modified  inter- 
relations of  the  great  nations  of  the  civilized  world. 
The  new  thought  of  the  solidarity  of  the  human  race 
simply  reminds  us  of  the  application  of  the  evolutionary 
principle  to  the  widest  possible  issues.  For  not  only 
are  the  great  modern  nations  becoming  more  and  more 


120         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

completely  specialized  and  unified  within  themselves, 
but  the  civilized  world  is  itself  developing  into  a  vast 
organic  whole,  made  up  of  many  such  highly  differen- 
tiated but  mutually  dependent  aggregations. 

Two  important  aspects  of  the  principles  here  indi- 
cated must  now  be  re-emphasized  as  presenting  truths 
to  which  we  shall  recur  later  on.  In  the  first  place,  in 
the  social  as  in  the  individual  organism,  repetition  of 
similar  parts  implies  a  relatively  low  stage  of  develop- 
ment, higher  stages  being  characterized  by  the  marking 
off  of  special  organs  for  the  performance  of  special 
functions.  In  the  second  place,  the  activity  of  every 
organ  being  limited,  adequate  performance  of  its  special 
function  by  each  organ  is  incompatible  with  continuance 
on  its  part  to  perform  other  functions.  That  its  own 
function  may  be  duly  carried  on,  it  must  be  relieved 
by  other  organs  of  the  need  for  sustaining  other  ac- 
tivities. 

Having  thus  indicated  the  principal  parallelisms 
between  societies  and  individual  organisms,  Mr.  Spencer 
proceeds  to  point  out  their  chief  differences.  As  there 
is  no  necessity  here  for  us  to  follow  him  into  his  con- 
sideration and  discussion  of  these,  we  will  confine  our- 
selves to  the  briefest  enumeration  of  them.  He  finds 
the  contrasts  also  to  be  four  in  number : 

1.  Societies  have  no  specific  external  forms. 

2.  The  living  tissue  whereof  an  individual  organism 
consists  forms  a  continuous  mass ;  the  living  elements 
of  a  society  do  not  form  a  continuous  mass,  but  are 


THE  SPENCERIAN   SOCIOLOGY.  121 

more  or  less  widely  dispersed  over  some  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface. 

3.  The  ultimate  living  elements  of  an  individual 
organism  are  mostly  fixed  in  their  relative  positions ; 
those   of   the  social   organism  are  capable   of  moving 
from  place  to  place. 

4.  In  the  body  of  an  animal  only  a  special  tissue  is 
endowed  with  feeling  ;  in  a  society  all  the  members  are 
endowed  with  feeling. 

With  much  ingenuity  Mr.  Spencer  labours  to  show 
that  these  obvious  contrasts  are  neither  so  fundamental 
nor  so  important  as  would  at  first  sight  appear.  This 
part  of  the  matter,  however,  does  not  now  concern  us. 
But  the  last-named  distinction  between  the  social  and 
the  individual  organism  should  be  looked  at  a  little 
more  closely,  because  it  points  to  a  profound  truth  of 
immediate  moment  to  us  here.  For  what  does  this 
distinction  imply?  It  implies  nothing  less  than  that 
there  is  a  radical  difference  between  the  relations  of 
parts  and  whole  in  the  individual  organism,  and  the 
relations  of  parts  and  whole  in  the  social  organism. 
"  While  in  individual  bodies  the  welfare  of  all  other 
parts  is  rightly  subservient  to  the  welfare  of  the  nervous 
system,  whose  pleasurable  or  painful  activities  make  up 
the  good  or  ill  of  life  ;  in  bodies  politic  the  same  thing 
does  not  hold,  or  holds  to  but  a  very  slight  extent.  It 
is  well  that  the  lives  of  all  parts  of  an  animal  should 
be  merged  in  the  life  of  the  whole,  because  the  whole 
has  a  corporate  consciousness  capable  of  happiness  or 


122         PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

misery.  But  it  is  not  so  with  a  society,  since  its  living 
units  do  not  and  cannot  lose  individual  consciousness, 
and  since  the  community  as  a  whole  has  no  corporate 
consciousness.  And  this  is  an  everlasting  reason  why 
the  welfares  of  citizens  cannot  rightly  be  sacrificed  to 
some  supposed  benefit  of  the  state ;  but  why,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  state  is  to  be  maintained  solely  for  the 
benefit  of  citizens.  The  corporate  life  must  here  be 
subservient  to  the  lives  of  the  parts,  instead  of  the  lives 
of  the  parts  being  subservient  to  the  corporate  life."  '• 

III. 

This,  which  might  at  first  sight  seem  to  be  a  con- 
clusion standing  by  itself,  and  of  no  further  use  to  us, 
may  for  our  present  purposes  be  taken  as  a  new  point 
of  departure.  Let  us  examine  in  detail  the  question  of 
the  relations  of  parts  to  whole  in  the  social  organism. 

From  the  earliest  developments  of  gregariousness  to 
the  latest  extension  of  governmental  activity,  the  only 
ultimate  authority  for  the  restraints  exercised  by  society 
in  its  corporate  capacity  over  its  individual  members  is 
the  welfare  of  those  individual  members.  The  welfare 
of  society  is  the  proximate  end  only ;  the  final  end  is 
the  welfare  of  the  units  of  which  the  society  is  com- 
posed. This  has  been  made  clear  by  the  above  con- 
siderations. But  does  this  mean  that  the  relations  of 
the  individual  to  the  corporate  life  should  be  or  could 

*  The  Social  Organism  (Essays,  vol.  i). 


THE  SPEXCERIAX  SOCIOLOGY.  123 

be  of  a  stable  or  unchanging  character?  From  the 
evolutionary  standpoint  such  an  idea  is  on  the  face  of 
it  untenable.  On  the  contrary,  such  relations  must 
inevitably  vary  with  the  varying  conditions  of  social 
growth.  The  social  organism,  like  all  other  organisms 
whatsoever,  must  mould  the  activities  of  its  inner  life  in 
response  to  outer  needs.  Only  by  adequately  meeting 
those  needs  can  its  existence  be  maintained,  and  while 
the  ultimate  end  of  social  organization  can  never  be 
other  than  that  alleged,  furtherance  of  that  ultimate 
end  may  often  be  impossible,  save  by  temporary  post- 
ponement of  it  to  the  proximate  end ;  in  other  words, 
the  welfare  of  society  may  have  to  take  precedence  of 
the  welfare  of  the  individual,  and  individual  life  be 
sacrificed  to  social  preservation.  We  may  put  the  mat- 
ter even  more  strongly,  and  state  at  once  that  through- 
out the  past  the  proximate  end,  that  of  social  preser- 
vation, has  habitually  been  of  prime  importance;  the 
claims  of  the  individual  in  contradistinction  to  those  of 
the  corporate  body  having  only  gradually  emerged  as 
vital  issues.  In  all  transitional  states,  indeed,  the  rela- 
tions of  which  we  speak  must  necessarily  be  relations 
of  compromise ;  but  such  compromise  will  favour  the 
whole  as  against  the  parts,  or  the  parts  as  against  the 
whole,  according  to  the  type  of  social  organization — the 
type  itself  being  evolved  in  answer  to  the  medium  of 
social  needs.  The  question  therefore  arises,  How  do  the 
general  conditions  of  any  given  society  tend  to  determine 
the  relations  of  its  citizens  to  the  state  ? 


124         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

The  evolution  of  life  at  large,  alike  in  its  higher  and 
in  its  lower  forms,  has  been  possible  only  because  in  the 
average  of  cases  there  has  throughout  been  a  definite 
connection  between  conduct  and  consequence.  But  for 
the  fact  that  individuals  structurally  best  adapted  to 
the  conditions  of  their  existence  have  prospered  by 
means  of  such  fuller  adaptation,  while  individuals  less 
favourably  endowed  have  dropped  out  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  no  advance  in  life  could  ever  have  taken 
place.  This  law,  which  ethically  enunciated,  becomes  the 
principle  that  each  individual  ought  to  receive  the  good 
and  evil  arising  from  its  own  nature,  is  the  primary  law 
of  existence,  holding  good  of  all  creatures,  and  qualified 
in  those  living  solitary  lives  only  by  that  "  self-subordi- 
nation needed  among  the  higher  of  them  for  the  rearing 
of  offspring." 

In  non-gregarious  creatures,  therefore,  the  only  con- 
flict is  between  self-subserving  and  race-subserving  ac- 
tivities ;  and  species  which  do  not  postpone  in  requisite 
degrees  the  former  class  of  activities  to  the  latter  will 
inevitably  disappear.  But  in  gregarious  creatures  an- 
other factor  comes  into  play.  Each  individual  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  own  satisfactions  must  be  prevented  from 
interfering  with  the  similar  pursuit  of  their  own  satis- 
factions on  the  part  of  others;  for  in  the  absence  of 
such  prevention  an  associated  state  would  be  impossible, 
and  each  individual  would  lose  the  benefits  that  co-oper- 
ation would  bring  The  associated  state,  therefore,  de- 
mands, in  addition  to  that  large  postponement  of  self  to 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  125 

offspring,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  life,  a  constant 
postponement  of  self  to  fellows,  negatively  by  restraint 
of  actions  that  impede,  and  positively  by  performance 
of  actions  that  further,  the  fullest  and  most  harmonious 
co-operation. 

Putting  these  two  principles  together,  we  are  able  to 
establish  an  important  conclusion.  The  prerequisite  of 
life  in  general  embodied  in  the  first  must  be  qualified 
in  the  way  indicated  by  the  second  when  the  individual, 
no  longer  isolated,  lives  in  association  with  others  whose 
presence  and  claims  necessarily  limit  the  range  of  his 
activities.  Hence  we  reach  the  formula  of  absolute  jus- 
tice.* "  Every  man  is  free  to  do  that  which  he  wills, 
provided  he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  any 
other  man." 

But  now  we  have  to  notice  that  under  certain  condi- 
tions these  abstract  principles  require  still  further  quali- 
fication. The  ultimate  authority  for  the  existence  of 

*  This  may  be  the  proper  place  to  point  out  a  distinctive  fea- 
ture in  Mr.  Spencer's  Ethics — the  separation  of  absolute  from  rela- 
tive ethics.  Absolutely  right  conduct  is  conduct  having  no  con- 
comitant of  pain,  or  painful  consequences,  either  to  self  or  others ; 
all  other  conduct,  though  it  may  be  relatively  right,  or  the  least 
wrong  possible  under  the  circumstances,  is  not  absolutely  right. 
In  the  drawing  up  of  a  code  of  absolute  morality,  therefore,  we 
must  consider  the  ideal  man  in  an  ideal  state  of  society ;  and  rela- 
tive morality  must  then  aim  to  approximate  to  this  as  closely  as 
is  possible  under  any  given  conditions.  In  discussing  the  Spen- 
cerian  ethics  this  vital  distinction  must  never  be  lost  sight  of. 
See  Data  of  Ethics,  chap,  xv,  and  compare  this  with  Social  Statics, 
Part  I,  chap,  i,  and  the  article  on  Absolute  Political  Ethics 
(Essays,  vol.  iii). 


126         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

the  associated  state  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  increased 
welfare  that  all  its  individual  units  are  enabled  to  ob- 
tain by  means  of  it.  This  renders  the  preservation  of 
the  associated  state  itself  of  the  first  importance;  and 
when  it  is  imperilled,  sacrifice  of  the  individual  to  se- 
cure its  continuance  receives  strong  ethical  sanction. 
This  fact  gives  us  the  clue  for  which  we  are  in  search 
in  our  inquiry  as  to  how  the  relations  of  citizen  to  state 
depend  upon  existing  social  conditions.  For  the  wel- 
fare of  the  individual  can  only,  ethically  considered, 
take  entire  and  immediate  precedence  of  the  welfare  of 
the  community  at  large  so  long  as  the  community  itself 
is  not  in  danger — in  other  words,  during  periods  of  sus- 
tained peace.  During  periods  of  military  activity  or 
preparation — that  is,  when  rightly  or  wrongly  it  is  sup- 
posed that  the  community  is  jeopardized  from  without 
— the  individual  has,  to  a  large  extent,  to  be  made  sub- 
servient to  the  state,  often  even  to  the  extent  of  being 
called  upon  to  render  up  property  and  life  to  aid  in 
keeping  the  social  structure  intact. 

We  see,  then,  that  in  the  social  organism  the  rela- 
tions of  parts  to  whole  depend  upon  the  average  activi- 
ties of  the  whole.  So  long  as  the  community  is  engaged 
in  a  struggle  for  existence  with  antagonistic  communi- 
ties, its  corporate  life  has  to  be  maintained  at  any  cost 
— even  at  the  cost  of  its  component  units ;  and  societies 
in  which  this  necessity  is  most  completely  met,  stand, 
other  things  equal,  the  best  chance  of  preservation. 
Sanction  for  the  temporary  postponement  of  the  indi- 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  127 

vidual  to  the  state  is  thus  obtained ;  but  this  sanction 
holds  good  only  so  long  as  the  specified  conditions  con- 
tinue. Just  as  soon  as  the  external  struggle  for  exist- 
ence ceases,  the  sanction  for  the  postponement  of  the 
individual  to  the  state  can  no  longer  be  alleged,  and  all 
qualification  lapses  in  regard  to  the  principles  above  set 
forth. 

IV. 

Before  we  can  appreciate  the  full  significance  of  this 
conclusion,  we  must  look  at  the  matter  for  a  moment 
from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view. 

Theoretically,  three  kinds  of  social  aggregation  may 
be  distinguished,  according  to  the  purposes  which  asso- 
ciation is  intended  to  subserve.  Men  may  group  them- 
selves together  (1)  merely  for  the  sake  of  companion- 
ship ;  (2)  for  combined  action  against  enemies,  animal 
or  human,  or  both ;  or  (3)  for  better  satisfaction  by 
means  of  reciprocal  aid  of  the  various  requirements  of 
life — higher  as  well  as  lower.*  The  resulting  aggre- 
gates may  be  defined  respectively  as  non-co-operative, 
military,  and  industrial. 

Of  the  first,   an  instance  is  found   in  the  case   of 

*  Justice,  §  102.  All  this  does  not,  of  course,  mean  that  men 
have  ever  consciously  banded  themselves  together  for  these  or  any 
other  purposes.  We  have  here  nothing  to  do  with  the  monstrous 
fiction  of  a  social  contract — one  of  the  favourite  theories  of 
eighteenth-century  speculation,  from  the  days  of  Locke  and  Filmer 
onward.  We  simply  recognize  that,  according  to  obtaining  condi- 
tions, association  has  been  naturally  brought  about  here  in  response 
to  one  kind  of  demand,  there  in  response  to  another. 


128         PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

the  Esquimaux,  who  live  in  groups,  but  who,  having  no 
external  enemies,  never  combine  for  purposes  of  cor- 
porate offence  and  defence,  and  among  whom  industrial 
co-operation  has  gone  no  further  than  a  division  of  labour 
between  man  and  wife  in  each  separate  family.  Exam- 
ples of  the  second  class  are  of  course  very  numerous, 
and  may  be  found  in  the  purest  form  in  "hunting- 
tribes  at  large,  the  activities  of  which  alternate  between 
chasing  animals  and  going  to  war  with  one  another," 
and  in  which  industrial  co-operation,  if  exhibited  at  all, 
is  exhibited  only  in  a  very  rudimentary  way.  When  we 
come  to  the  third  division  we  are  met,  in  search  for 
illustrations,  by  the  difficulty  arising  from  lack  of  ma- 
terial. The  purely  industrial  society  does  not  yet  exist 
in  a  developed  form.  A  few  perfectly  peaceful  tribes 
are  to  be  found  here  and  there  in  the  world — like  the 
Bodos,  the  Dhimals,  and  the  Kocchs — who,  never  need- 
ing to  combine  for  aggression  or  defence,  do  yet  to  some 
extent  render  mutual  assistance  in  the  simple  activities  of 
their  daily  lives.  But  all  advanced  peoples  without  ex- 
ception, as  well  as  most  of  those  relatively  low  down  in 
the  scale  of  civilization,  yield  cases  of  association  for  the 
achievement  of  all  the  three  ends  above  distinguished. 
The  desire  for  social  intercourse  is  satisfied ;  life  is  made 
easier  and  larger  by  means  of  industrial  co-operation; 
but  at  the  same  time  there  is  still  need  for  corporate 
action,  if  not  of  an  aggressive,  then,  at  any  rate,  of  a 
defensive  nature. 

Now,  the  fact  that  even  the  most  fully  industrialized 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  129 

of  developed  societies  are  still  quasi-military  in  their 
constitution,  introduces  us  to  an  important  truth.  An- 
tagonistic as  are  the  military  and  the  industrial  activi- 
ties, throughout  the  whole  course  of  social  evolution, 
from  the  very  beginning  until  now,  the  former  has 
played  a  main  part  in  the  development  of  the  latter. 
But  for  war,  little  advance  would  have  been  possible. 
War  has  been  essentially  the  consolidating  factor,  and 
its  ever-widening  sweep  has  in  the  upshot  but  cleared  a 
larger  area  for  the  play  of  industrial  forces.  Each  new 
integration  brought  about  by  conquest  has  ultimately 
changed  the  warlike  relations  formerly  existing  between 
the  communities  integrated  into  relations  of  a  peaceful 
character ;  their  interests,  instead  of  being  antagonistic, 
become  interdependent.  As  this  process,  which  has  gone 
on  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  human  history,  continues, 
its  results,  though  of  the  same  general  nature,  will  be 
on  a  grander  scale.  Eventually,  war  will  bring  about 
its  own  destruction  by  aiding  in  the  production, 
throughout  a  world-area,  of  those  industrial  conditions 
which  will  render  anti-industrial  relations  henceforth 
impossible. 

Eecognizing  this  fact — which  is  indeed  one  of  too 
much  significance  ever  to  be  lost  sight  of — we  can  un- 
derstand how  it  is  that  even  the  most  highly  civilized 
nations  are  still  in  a  transitional  state.  A  factor  of  su- 
preme importance  in  the  earlier  stages  of  their  develop- 
ment, war,  though  of  ever-decreasing  importance  in  their 
more  advanced  stages,  has,  down  to  quite  recent  times, 


130         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

played  a  large  part  in  the  unification  of  national  inter- 
ests, which  is  one  phase  of  all  social  progress.  Hence, 
we  can  for  the  time  being  reach  nothing  better  than  a 
compromise  between  the  demands  of  military  co-opera- 
tion on  the  one  hand,  and  the  demands  of  industrial  co- 
operation on  the  other.  But  here  a  further  distinction 
is  to  be  made.  This  compromise,  formerly  in  favour  of 
the  military  claims,  is  now  (in  some  modern  countries 
considerably,  and  in  a  few  markedly)  in  favour  of  the  in- 
dustrial claims.  While  hitherto  the  all-important  thing 
was  to  keep  up  military  efficiency,  and  industry  was 
valued  only  to  the  extent  to  which  it  aided  in  doing 
this ;  now,  on  the  contrary,  industrial  growth  is  the  all- 
important  thing,  and  military  efficiency  is  valued  only 
in  so  far  as,  by  yielding  adequate  protection,  it  furthers 
peaceful  co-operation.  Hence,  though,  among  the  more 
advanced  societies,  we  cannot  specify  any  as  absolutely 
military  or  absolutely  industrial,  we  can  still  divide 
them,  accordingly  as  the  warlike  activities  take  prece- 
dence of  the  peaceful,  or  the  reverse,  into  two  classes, 
which  we  may  call  the  military-industrial  and  the  in- 
du  strial-military. 

What,  now,  should  we  infer  to  be,  and  do  we  actual- 
ly find  to  be,  the  characteristic  differences  of  these  two 
classes  of  societies?  Their  most  salient  and  funda- 
mental points  of  distinction  may  be  briefly  summarized.* 


*  Principles  of  Sociology,  §§  258-262.     See  also  the  article  on 
Specialized  Administration. 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  131 

In  the  military-industrial  type,  the  corporate  life 
being  the  unit  of  organization,  we  have  centralized  con- 
trol, despotic  rule,  and  widely-ramified  gradations  of 
rank.  As  reflecting  the  average  life  of  the  community, 
the  religion  is  one  of  enmity — is  marked  by  the  promi- 
nence of  stern  and  repulsive  doctrines ;  while  the  eccle- 
siastical system  exhibits  an  elaborate  hierarchy  closely 
resembling  the  hierarchy  of  the  political  system.  Mean- 
while, industrial  activities,  regarded  only  as  factors  for 
the  sustentatiou  of  the  military  system,  are  more  or  less 
subjected  to  state  interference  and  control ;  and  since  it 
is  the  welfare  of  the  state  that  is  always  held  in  view, 
the  general  life  of  the  community  is  dealt  with  in  any 
way  that  may  seem  to  secure  higher  corporate  capacity. 
Thus,  the  regime  is  one  of  compulsory  co-operation. 
The  individual  belongs  to  the  state  and  exists  for  the 
state. 

Over  against  this  we  may  set  the  leading  charac- 
teristics of  the  industrial-military  type.  The  need  for 
such  corporate  action  as  is  called  for  in  war  having 
largely  lapsed,  there  is  a  relative  absence  of  centralized 
control ;  democratic  rule  gradually  supersedes  despotic 
rule ;  and  the  old  gradations  of  rank  slowly  lose  their 
meaning  and  tend  to  disappear.  The  harsher  traits  of 
the  religious  creed  drop  away,  and,  in  answer  to  the 
peaceful  life  of  the  society,  gentler  and  kindlier  aspects 
come  into  relief.  Along  with  this  goes  the  breaking  up 
of  the  ecclesiastical  as  of  the  political  hierarchy,  and 
the  rise  and  spread  of  non-conformity.  Industrial  activi- 


132         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

ties,  no  longer  considered  only  as  furnishing  mainte- 
nance for  the  state,  little  by  little  free  themselves  from 
state  control  and  dictation,  while  the  individual,  ceas- 
ing to  be  simply  a  servant  of  the  general  community, 
refuses  to  tolerate  the  interference  of  the  community  in 
the  various  pursuits  of  his  private  life.  This  is  the 
regime  of  voluntary  co-operation.  The  state  exists 
simply  for  the  individual. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that,  omitting  the  many 
other  cases  that  might  be  cited  in  illustration,  the 
general  history  of  civilization  during  the  past  three  or 
four  hundred  years  has  shown,  along  with  the  gradual 
decrease  in  military  activity,  a  distinct,  though  of 
course  by  no  means  regular,  movement  away  from  the 
military-industrial  type  of  social  organization  and  to- 
wards the  industrial-military  type.  This  movement, 
though  general,  has  gone  further  in  some  countries  than 
in  others ;  and  the  contrast  presented  to  us  to-day  be- 
tween England  and  America  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
great  continental  nations  of  Europe  upon  the  other,  is 
a  striking  and  instructive  one.  All  this  is  manifest 
enough  ;  but  there  is  another  point,  equally  significant 
in  its  way,  that  might  easily  escape  attention.  The 
metamorphosis  in  question  goes  on  only  while  conditions 
remain  favourable ;  as  soon  as  they  become  unfavour- 
able, a  retrograde  tendency  asserts  itself  almost  imme- 
diately. No  lessons  of  recent  history  are  more  weighty 
than  those  taught  by  this  social  atavism.  After  remark- 
ing, in  the  course  of  one  of  his  many  contributions  to 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  133 

the  discussion  of  this  subject,  that,  just  before  the  civil 
war,  industrialization  had  advanced  to  such  an  extent  in 
our  Northern  States  that  "  military  organization  had 
almost  disappeared,  and  everything  martial  had  fallen 
into  contempt,"  Mr.  Spencer  continues  :  "  During  the 
late  war  in  America  Mr.  Seward's  boast — '  I  touch  this 
bell,  and  any  man  in  the  remotest  State  is  a  prisoner  of 
the  Government '  (a  boast  which  was  not  an  empty  one, 
and  which  was  by  many  of  the  Republican  party  greatly 
applauded) — shows  us  how  rapidly,  along  with  militant 
activities,  there  tends  to  be  resumed  the  needful  type  of 
centralized  structure,  and  how  there  quickly  grow  up 
the  corresponding  sentiments  and  ideas.  Our  own  his- 
tory since  1815  has  shown  a  double  change  of  this  kind. 
During  the  thirty  years'  peace  the  militant  organization 
dwindled,  the  military  sentiment  greatly  decreased,  the 
industrial  organization  rapidly  developed,  the  assertion 
of  the  individuality  of  the  citizen  became  more  decided, 
and  many  restrictive  and  despotic  regulations  were  got 
rid  of.  Conversely,  since  the  revival  of  militant  activi- 
ties and  structures  on  the  Continent  our  own  offensive 
and  defensive  structures  have  been  redeveloping;  and 
the  tendency  towards  increase  of  that  centralized  con- 
trol which  accompanies  such  structures  has  become 
marked."  * 

What  practical  conclusions  are  we  to  draw  from  the 
inquiries  here  instituted? 


*  Specialized  Administration.     See  also  Justice,  §  72,  etc. 
10 


13  4         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

First,  that  the  rise  of  individual  independence  of  the 
state,  and  the  decrease  of  state  meddling  with  the  mul- 
titudinous affairs  of  private  life,  have  naturally  accom- 
panied the  gradual  decline  of  militancy  and  the  slow 
reconstruction  of  the  great  nations  of  the  world  upon 
an  industrial  basis.  Such  has  been  throughout  the 
most  noteworthy  characteristic  of  social  evolution.* 
Secondly,  that  as,  from  first  to  last,  the  end  to  be 
achieved  by  society  in  its  corporate  capacity  is  the  wel- 
fare of  its  units,  the  ethical  warrant  for  the  coercion  of 
the  individual  by  the  state,  derived  from  the  condition 
of  war,  disappears  as  war  itself  ceases,  and  cannot  be 
alleged  as  holding  for  a  condition  of  peace.  And, 
thirdly,  that  those  who  seek  to  reverse  the  order  of  so- 
cial evolution  by  re-expansion  of  the  scope  of  state 
activity  and  power,  are  endeavouring  to  fit  down  arti- 
ficially a  system  belonging  properly  to  one  type  of  so- 
cial structure  upon  the  other  type  of  social  structure, 
which  has  all  along  been  outgrowing  it — are  engaged, 
therefore,  in  a  retrogressive  enterprise,  which  is  in  the 
very  nature  of  things  foredoomed  to  disaster. f 


*  An  interesting  side  light  is  thrown  upon  this  whole  question 
of  the  gradual  development  of  personality  by  such  books  as  Sid- 
ney Lanier's  English  novel,  and  Mr.  H.  M.  Posnett's  Comparative 
Literature,  in  the  International  Scientific  Series. 

f  It  is  not  by  accident  that  socialistic  schemes  flourish  most 
in  a  military  atmosphere.  In  Germany,  "  where  militancy  is  most 
pronounced,  and  where  the  regulation  of  citizens  is  most  elabo- 
rate, socialism  is  most  highly  developed,  and  from  the  head  of 
the  German  military  system  has  now  come  the  proposal  of  regi- 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  135 

V. 

But  these  conclusions,  important  though  they  are, 
do  not  represent  the  whole  of  the  case.  Not  only  dur- 
ing the  course  of  social  development  does  ethical  sanc- 
tion for  state  interference  with  the  individual  gradually 
decline,  but  the  relinquishment  of  such  interference  is 
seen,  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view,  to  be  a  neces- 
sary accompaniment  of  the  increasingly  adequate  per- 
formance on  the  part  of  government  of  the  special 
functions  for  which  it  is  properly  responsible. 

Here  we  must  revert  to  the  principle  of  the  physio- 
logical division  of  labor,  already  touched  upon.  It  has 
been  shown  that  repetition  of  similar  parts,  whether  in 
an  individual  structure  or  in  society,  implies  lowness  of 
organization,  evolution  being  everywhere  characterized 
by  the  complexity  resulting  from  the  multiplication  of 
different  parts  fulfilling  different  duties.  Beyond  this, 
it  has  been  made  clear  that  specialization  of  function 
brings  with  it  limitation  of  function.  "At  the  same 
time  that  each  part  grows  adapted  to  the  particular 
duty  it  has  to  discharge,  it  grows  unadapted  to  all  other 
duties  "  * — a  truth  exemplified  alike  in  biology  and  in 
political  economy.  The  application  of  this  principle  to 
the  matter  in  hand  is  obvious.  "  The  governmental 

mental  regulations  for  the  working  classes  throughout  Europe " 
(Justice,  §  26). 

*  Representative  Government — What  is  it  Good  fort  (Essays, 
vol.  iii). 


136         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

part  of  the  body  politic  exemplifies  this  truth  equally 
with  its  other  parts.  In  virtue  of  this  universal  law,  a 
government  cannot  gain  ability  to  perform  its  special 
work  without  losing  such  ability  as  it  had  to  perform 
other  work."  * 

Hence  we  must  meet,  with  a  more  definite  answer 
than  has  yet  been  given  or  implied,  the  question,  What 
is  the  special  work  of  a  government  ? 

We  have  said  that  the  only  ultimate  sanction  for 
social  organization  in  any  form  is  the  welfare  of  the 
individual  unit.  Co-operation  secures  for  all  a  larger 
and  fuller  life  than  each  could  secure  for  himself ;  and 
the  business  of  the  community  in  its  corporate  capacity 
is  to  maintain  the  conditions  which  make  co-operation 
possible.  How  can  it  do  this  ?  By  protecting  the  indi- 
vidual in  such  way  that  in  each  case  the  fundamental 
laws  of  life  shall  not  be  interfered  with ;  in  other  words, 
by  securing  that  state  of  things  which  enables  each 
citizen  to  receive  the  full  benefit  of  his  character  and 
activities,  subject  only  to  the  limitations  necessarily 
imposed  upon  him  by  the  presence  of  fellow-citizens 
having  like  claims. 

That  this,  and  this  alone,  is  the  true  function  of  the 
state,  is  proved  (though  not  only  in  this  way)  by  the 
striking  fact  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  other 
duties  assumed  or  rejected  by  governments  in  various 
places  and  at  different  times,  this  duty  has  never  been 

*  Ibid.   Compare  the  Essay  on  Over-Legislation  (Essays,  vol.  iii). 


THE  SPEXCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  137 

overlooked.  The  earliest  and  the  latest  developments 
of  social  structure,  differ  though  they  may  in  every 
other  respect,  alike  hold  this  end  in  view.  Positive 
regulation  of  the  citizen  by  the  community  has  varied 
all  the  world  over,  and  varies  still  in  extent,  rigor,  and 
direction ;  negative  regulation  has  uniformly  been  ac- 
cepted, theoretically  at  any  rate,  as  coming  directly 
within  the  range  of  governmental  activity. 

This  is  clearly  brought  out  by  a  comparison  of  the 
military  and  industrial  types  of  society.  We  have  seen 
that  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  community 
immediately  depends  upon  the  social  structure  evolved 
in  response  to  average  needs.  Yet  though,  where  the 
activities  are  predominantly  warlike,  the  unit  apparently 
exists  for  the  sake  of  the  whole,  while  where  the  ac- 
tivities are  predominantly  peaceful  the  whole  clearly 
exists  for  the  sake  of  the  unit,  in  each  case  the  eth- 
ical authority  for  state  regulation,  be  this  small  or 
great,  is  ultimately  the  maintenance  of  the  conditions 
prerequisite  to  peaceful  co-operation.  During  periods 
of  antagonistic  relations  with  other  communities  the 
main  business  of  government,  therefore,  is  to  protect 
society  from  external  enemies,  internal  regulation  being 
wholly  subservient  to  this  special  end.  When,  with  the 
gradual  cessation  of  war,  this  function  lapses,  there  re- 
mains still  the  duty  of  maintaining  the  conditions  pre- 
requisite to  peaceful  co-operation  in  other  ways — name- 
ly, by  protecting  society  from  internal  enemies.  And 
now  let  us  note  the  supremely  important  inference.  In 


138         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

the  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  ethical  sanction  warrants 
the  interference  of  the  state  with  the  individual  so  far 
as  is  necessary  to  achieve  the  object  here  set  forth,  and 
no  further.  As  in  the  military  regime  no  moral  right 
can  be  shown  to  exist  for  state  coercion  of  citizens 
beyond  the  point  required  for  successful  resistance  to 
antagonistic  societies,  so  in  the  industrial  regime  no 
moral  right  can  be  shown  to  exist  for  state  coercion  of 
citizens  beyond  the  point  required  for  successful  resist- 
ance to  antagonistic  units ;  state  functions  are  ethically 
limited  to  the  maintenance  of  strictly  equitable  rela- 
tions among  the  separate  members  of  the  community. 
Thus  we  come  round  from  another  side  to  the  formula 
of  abstract  justice  already  given.  Every  man  must  be 
held  free  to  do  that  which  he  wills,  provided  only  he 
infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  other  men ;  and  the 
duty  of  the  state  is  to  guard  each  individual  citizen 
from  such  infringement.  When  the  state  itself  com- 
mits such  infringement,  therefore,  it  not  only  exceeds 
its  duty,  but  it  becomes  actually  guilty  of  that  which  it 
is  its  immediate  and  express  duty  to  prevent. 

Such,  then,  is  the  proper  function  of  the  state,  and 
in  fitting  itself  more  completely  for  this,  the  state  neces- 
sarily, as  we  have  seen,  becomes  less  fit  for  anything 
else.  In  low,  undeveloped  forms  of  society,  the  essen- 
tial work  of  protection  against  enemies,  internal  and 
external,  is  performed  with  extreme  imperfection,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  is  encumbered  with  countless 
other  kinds  of  work  which  do  not  appertain  to  govern- 


THE  SPENCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY.  139 

raent  at  all ;  but  with  social  evolution,  progressive  dif- 
ferentiation, while  gradually  relieving  the  ruling  agency 
of  these  multitudinous  extra  duties,  enables  it  to  dis- 
charge its  own  particular  function  with  ever-increasing 
success.  Thus  the  natural  tendency  is  towards  special- 
ized administration — towards  the  production  of  a  type 
of  government  best  adapted  for  the  proper  work  of 
government,  and  therefore  least  adapted  for  any  other 
sort  of  work  whatsoever.* 

This  doctrine  has  been  called  by  all  sorts  of  hard 
names,  not  only  by  admitted  socialists  but  by  many 
"  practical  legislators  "  and  "  common-sense  politicians," 
who,  while  they  would  be  horrified  at  the  thought  of 
being  identified  with  the  socialists,  are  constantly  favour- 
ing movements  that  are  socialistic  under  the  thinnest 
possible  disguise.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  major- 
ity of  those  who  are  so  loud  in  their  anathemas  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  individualism  are  utterly  unaware  that  it  has 
anything  but  a  negative  side.  Familiar  with  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's unmeasured  denunciation  of  state  interference — 
denunciation  everywhere  backed  up  by  long  arrays  of 
the  most  striking  but  never  appreciated  facts — they 
seem  to  think  that  there  the  matter  ends.  But  there 
the  matter  does. not  end.  The  truth,  already  implied 
in  the  above  considerations,  and  now  to  be  definitely 
set  forth,  is  simply  this :  that  while  Mr.  Spencer  pro- 


*  See  particularly  the  essay  on  Representative  Government — 
What  is  it  good  for  ? 


140         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

tests  against  the  continual  meddling  of  government 
with  affairs  that  do  not  concern  it,  he  advocates  at  the 
same  time  a  more  and  more  complete  and  conscientious 
discharge  on  its  part  of  the  business  that  properly  falls 
within  its  scope.  Hitherto,  and  at  the  present  time, 
over-legislation,  where  legislation  is  not  wanted,  has 
inevitably  been  accompanied  by  under-legislation  where 
legislation  is  sadly  called  for ;  things  are  regulated  that 
ought  to  be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  as  a 
necessary  consequence  other  things  are  left  to  take  care 
of  themselves  that  ought  to  be  regulated.  Mr.  Spencer 
seeks  to  turn  the  scale  to  the  other  side — curtailing 
governmental  activity  in  one  direction,  while  expanding 
it  in  another. 

In  his  conversation  on  The  Americans*  (October  20, 
1882),  there  is  a  passage  of  special  interest  in  this  con- 
nection. "  But  we  thought,  Mr.  Spencer,"  said  the 
interviewer,  referring  to  some  remarks  that  had  just 
passed  concerning  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
community,  "  you  were  in  favour  of  free  government 
in  the  sense  of  relaxed  restraints,  and  letting  men  and 
things  very  much  alone,  or  what  is  called  laissez-faire" 
"  That,"  answered  Mr.  Spencer,  "  is  a  persistent  misun- 
derstanding of  my  opponents.  Everywhere,  along  with 
the  reprobation  of  government  intrusion  into  various 
spheres  wh&»  private  activities  should  be  left  to  them- 
selves, I  have  contended  that  in  its  special  sphere — the 

*  Reprinted  in  the  collected  edition  of  his  Essays,  vol.  iii. 


THE  SPEXCERIAN  SOCIOLOGY. 

maintenance  of  equitable  relations  among  citizens — 
governmental  action  should  be  extended  and  elabo- 
rated." 

How  often  this  contention  has  been  made,  careful 
study  of  even  the  more  popular  of  Mr.  Spencer's  polit- 
ical writings  will  make  clear.*  Meanwhile,  as  it  is  not 
our  purpose  here  to  follow  the  general  doctrine  that  we 
have  outlined  into  details,  we  must  rest  content  if  we 
have  shown  that  this  positive  view  of  the  matter,  so 
commonly  lost  sight  of,  is  nevertheless  of  the  essence  of 
the  whole.  The  object  of  this  chapter,  as  stated  at  the 
outset,  has"  been  not  to  expound  Mr.  Spencer's  social 
and  political  teachings  in  their  particular  applications, 
or  to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  them  from  so-called 
practical  points  of  view,  but  to  indicate  the  principal 
lines  of  contact  between  them  and  the  body  of  his 
thought.  We  trust  that  we  have  said  enough  to  prove 
that  his  individualism,  so  far  from  being  artificially 
foisted  on  to  the  rest  of  his  system,  as  some  would  have 
us  believe,  grows  naturally  out  of  and  therefore  prop- 
erly belongs  to  it — is  an  organic  part  of  his  general 
doctrine  of  universal  evolution. 


*  See  especially  the  Essays,  already  so  frequently  referred  to, 
on  Representative  Government,  Over-Legislation,  and  Specialized 
Administration ;  also  Political  Institutions,  passim,  and  Justice, 
chap,  xxv,  which  last  compare  with  Social  Statics,  chaps,  xxi,  xxii. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    ETHICAL   SYSTEM    OF   SPENCER. 
I. 

HAS  the  doctrine  of  evolution  modified  our  concep- 
tions of  morality  ?  Has  it  in  any  way  helped  to  estab- 
lish the  principles  of  right  living  upon  a  firm,  scientific 
foundation?  These  are  questions  that  meet  us  on  the 
threshold  of  such  a  study  as  we  are  to  take  up  in  the 
present  chapter,  and  they  must  be  dealt  with  before  we 
can  place  Mr.  Spencer's  contributions  to  ethical  science 
in  their  proper  light,  or  understand  their  full  signifi- 
cance. 

The  struggle  of  a  new  idea  concerning  the  universe 
with  the  old  ideas  whose  peaceful  reign  it  disturbs, 
almost  invariably  passes  through  two  stages — a  stage  of 
positive  antagonism  and  a  stage  of  high-handed  con- 
ciliation. At  the  outset  it  is  war  to  the  knife.  Cham- 
pions of  the  older  order  rush  into  the  lists,  intent  on 
proving  not  so  much  that  the  new  thought  is  untrue 
as  that  it  is  inexpedient.  They  ask  the  world  not  to 
examine  the  evidence,  but  to  calculate  the  consequences. 
If  the  ancient  cosmology  is  overthrown,  and  the  phi- 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.          143 

losophy  of  life  so  long  based  upon  it  crumbles  to  pieces 
as  a  necessary  result,  then,  argues  the  reactionist,  we 
know  what  we  have  to  expect.  The  foundations  of 
morality  will  be  swept  away ;  social  disintegration  will 
follow ;  religion  itself  will  perish.  A  thousand  pulpits 
take  up  the  warning  cry ;  the  press  teems  with  hyster- 
ical vaticinations ;  strong  voices  are  raised  in  argument 
or  appeal.*  Amid  all  the  angry  outcry  and  popular 
confusion  that  ensues,  the  new  thought  holds  secure  its 
tiny  germ  of  life.  While  men  work,  and  wrangle,  and 
sleep,  it  makes  its  silent  way;  and  before  the  world 
realizes  the  vastness  of  the  change  that  has  been  wrought 
in  its  midst,  the  truth  comes  to  be  recognized  as  true. 
Then,  strangely  enough,  we  hear  nothing  more  of  the 
disastrous  consequences  that  were  to  follow  in  its  train. 
The  moment  for  conciliation  has  arrived,  and  the  atti- 
tude of  the  conservative  is  soon  taken  up.  Where  is 
the  need  of  all  this  excitement  ?  he  asks.  We  all  know 
the  thing  is  true — in  theory ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  only  a 
theory,  and  what  difference  does  it  make  one  way  or  the 
other?  You  are  quite  overrating  the  practical  impor- 
tance of  the  whole  issue.  The  world  is  neither  better 
nor  worse  for  the  revelation.  The  old  religion  is  un- 
touched, the  old  morality  remains  just  where  it  was 
before. 

Through  these  two  stages  of  experience,  no  less  than 

*  See,  for  example,  Prof.  Goldwin  Smith's  extraordinary  dia- 
tribe on  Will  Morality  survive  Religion?  in  the  Forum  for  April, 
1891. 


144         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

almost  every  other  great  theory  that  science  has  given 
to  the  world,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  passed  on  its 
way  to  general  recognition.  At  first,  the  Cassandra- 
voices  raised  against  it  were  of  the  loudest  and  the  most 
persistent.  The  end  of  the  moral  cosmos  was  at  hand. 
Natural  selection  was  to  give  us  a  cold,  bloodless  system 
of  unrestrained  appetite,  untempered  egoism,  unrelieved 
brutality,  in  place  of  the  benign  and  simple  altruism  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  higher  feelings  were 
to  have  no  further  play ;  every  quality  that  had  beauti- 
fied the  life  of  saint  and  martyr  and  philanthropist  was 
to  vanish  before  the  new  gospel  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  in  the  universal  struggle  for  existence.  Every 
one  for  himself,  and  the  weakest  to  the  wall — that  was 
to  be  the  modern  transliteration  of  the  Golden  Eule, 
with  what  frightful  results  to  the  humanity  of  the 
future  it  was  hardly  needful  to  specify.*  The  prophetic 
picture  drawn  was  dire  enough,  it  is  true ;  the  more 
wonder  surely  (for  all  this,  let  us  remember,  took  place 
not  at  the  period  of  the  Eeformation,  but  within  the 
memory  of  men  now  living)  that  it  has  so  soon  been 
all  but  forgotten.  For  the  intellectual  offspring  and 
representatives  of  these  passionate  opponents  of  evolu- 

*  It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  notice  that  in  ethical  specula- 
tions on  the  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  survival  of  the 
fittest  is  too  often  taken  to  mean  survival  of  the  physically  strong- 
est— of  the  vulgarest,  as  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  would  say.  This,  for 
instance,  is  the  mistake  made  by  Oliver  Luttrel  in  Mr.  Besant's 
Bell  of  St.  Paul's ;  and  his  reasoning  upon  the  subject  is  charac- 
teristic of  a  wide-spread  error  in  general  thought. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         14.5 

tion  in  the  early  years  of  its  growth  are  anxious  to  have 
us  know  that  they  at  least  are  not  afraid  of  it.  Why 
should  they  be  ?  It  was,  as  they  now  discover,  implied 
in  all  their  teaching  long  before  the  days  of  Darwin 
and  Spencer;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  adds  nothing, 
one  way  or  the  other,  to  the  great  practical  questions  of 
life.  The  end  of  the  moral  cosmos  at  hand  ?  Oh,  no ; 
for  evolution,  though  it  may  have  thrown  some  new 
light  upon  biology,  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
ethics.  Any  attempt  to  work  it  out  into  practical  ap- 
plications will  only  reveal  its  sterility.  Let  the  scientists 
do  what  they  like  about  it,  then.  We  are  not  con- 
cerned. Our  morality  is  still  the  morality  of  them  of 
old  time.  Evolution  has  not  changed  it — not  even  in 
the  slightest  particular. 

In  what  sense  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  shade 
of  truth  in  this  sweeping  declaration,  as  well  as  the 
extreme  falseness  of  the  statement  taken  as  a  whole, 
will  become  clear  later  on.  Meanwhile  there  is  one 
point  that  we  may  conveniently  deal  with  at  once.  It 
is  commonly  and  properly  said  that  the  whole  edifice  of 
modern  science  is  founded  upon  the  datum  of  causa- 
tion. The  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  Nature  and  of 
natural  processes  is  exactly  that  which  all  our  investiga- 
tion is  widening,  deepening,  and  everywhere  making 
more  and  more  secure ;  and  so  strong  is  the  hold  that 
it  has  already  taken  upon  the  cultivated  mind,  that  it  is 
now  admitted  on  all  sides  by  those  whose  training  in 
exact  methods  of  inquiry  renders  them  competent  to 


146         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

judge,  that  there  is  no  room  left  for  the  ancient  theo- 
logical conceptions  of  the  causeless,  the  lawless,  the 
arbitrary,  in  the  material  universe  as  it  stands  revealed 
to  our  ken.  The  persistent  tendency  of  all  evolutionary 
thought  has  been  to  emphasize  this  sense  of  the  univer- 
sality of  law  where  it  was  already  present,  and  to  intro- 
duce it  where  it  did  not  exist  before.  In  this  way,  as  a 
recent  writer  on  evolutionary  morals  has  well  pointed 
out,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  really  contributed 
more  to  ethics  than  to  the  natural  sciences.  These 
latter  "  at  least  recognized  before  the  appearance  of  the 
theory  of  evolution  the  element  of  constancy  ordinarily 
called  law,  and  attempted  to  formulate  this  constancy 
as  a  basis  of  thought  and  action."*  But  in  ethics  no 
such  systematic  attempt  had  been  made,  morality  being, 
indeed,  expressly  regarded  as  a  region  outside  and  above 
the  domain  of  law.  With  the  application  of  evolution- 
ary theories  to  moral  principles  went  for  the  first  time 
the  emphatic  assertion  that  the  connection  of  cause  and 
effect  must  be  taken  to  hold  good  in  moral  no  less  than 
in  natural  science ;  that,  indeed,  only  on  recognition  of 
this  connection  is  any  science  of  ethics  possible.  While 
the  evolutionary  theory,  therefore,  only  strengthened 
and  deepened  the  conception  of  causation  already  exist- 
ing in  other  departments  of  research,  it  may  be  said 
almost  to  have  introduced  that  conception  into  investi- 


*  C.  M.  Williams,  A  Review  of  the  Systems  of  Ethics  founded 
on  the  Theory  of  Evolution,  pp.  514,  515. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         147 

gations  on  the  subject  of  morality.  Something  of  what 
is  meant  by  the  great  change  in  thought  thus  rendered 
possible  we  shall  see  presently.  Here  we  may  well  bear 
in  mind  the  fact,  that  if  the  doctrine  of  evolution  had 
done  no  more  than  impregnate  sociological  discussion 
with  this  principle  of  causation,  it  would  have  made 
good  its  claim  to  have  given  ethics  a  new  basis  and 
starting-point,  since  in  this  way  it  has  bridged  over  the 
wide  chasm  between  a  merely  empirical  and  a  truly 
scientific  system  of  morality. 

Meanwhile,  that  we  have  now  reached  a  crisis  in 
morals  has  been  growing  more  and  more  manifest  to  all 
who  take  an  interest  in  the  larger  movements  of  the 
time.  Be  the  influence  of  the  theory  of  evolution  upon 
ethics  what  it  may,  the  most  vigilant  and  sagacious 
thinkers  on  every  side  acknowledge  that  the  forces 
most  deeply  implicated  in  the  changes  that  are  gradu- 
ally coming  over  the  whole  of  our  civilization  are  car- 
rying us  to  the  verge  of  a  moral  interregnum.  The 
supremacy  of  the  older,  theologically-derived  sanctions 
of  conduct  is  breaking  down  ;  and  the  danger,  imme- 
diate and  serious,  is,  lest  they  should  be  generally  cast 
away  as  valueless  and  inefficient  before  any  other  sanc- 
tions are  established  to  take  their  place.  At  this  period 
of  transition,  while,  as  Matthew  Arnold  put  it,  "  the 
old  is  out  of  date  "  and  "  the  new  is  not  yet  born,"  the 
world  at  large  undoubtedly  stands  in  peril  of  a  moral 
collapse.  Half-educated  reformers,  of  more  zeal  than 
wisdom,  in  their  anxiety  to  sweep  away  every  vestige  of 


148         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

what  they  fulminate  against  as  the  ancient  supersti- 
tions of  the  race,  are  too  apt  to  overlook  the  solemn 
fact,  written  none  the  less  in  letters  of  fire  on  every 
page  of  history,  that  the  mere  destruction  of  restraints 
and  inspirations  under  and  in  virtue  of  which  men 
have  developed  hitherto,  would  mean,  not  advance,  but 
chaos.  It  is  well  enough  to  throw  aside  every  husk  of 
old  doctrine ;  but  may  we  not  find  ourselves  sometimes 
in  our  careless  haste  discarding,  along  with  the  useless 
rubbish,  some  germs  of  vital  truth  that  the  world  can- 
not afford  to  be  without?*  It  is  perhaps  worth  while 
to  pause  occasionally  to  ask  ourselves  such  a  question  as 
this ;  and  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  emotions,  upon 
which,  after  all,  the  larger  part  of  morality  finally  de- 
pends, cannot  without  deadly  risk  be  cut  loose  from 
their  old  moorings  and  set  adrift  upon  the  treacherous 
sea  of  chance,  at  the  mercy  of  every  current  and  wave. 
Upon  the  whole,  when  we  remember  the  congruity  that 
must,  according  to  the  evolutionary  theory,  exist  be- 
tween the  creed  of  a  people  and  their  average  needs, 
we  cannot  protest  too  vigorously  against  crude  experi- 
ments and  ill-advised  tamperings  with  the  world's  heri- 
tage of  traditions,  especially  when  anything  so  sacred 

*  The  case  of  Lessing  is  here  in  point.  Writing  to  his  friend 
Mendelssohn  concerning  the  rationalistic  experiences  of  his  earlier 
years,  he  confesses  that  in  "  getting  rid  of  certain  prejudices  "  he 
had  also  deprived  himself  of  some  things  that  he  would  have  to 
recover.  "  That  I  have  not  in  part  done  so  already,"  he  adds,  "  is 
only  due  to  my  fear  lest,  by  degrees,  I  should  drag  the  whole  rub- 
bish into  the  house  again." 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         14-9 

and  essential  as  the  main-springs  of  conduct  are  con- 
cerned ;  we  cannot  too  strongly  discountenance  the 
spirit  of  the  rash  iconoclast  who  cares  only  to  sap  the 
ancient  foundations  of  moral  faith,  and  has  no  prin- 
ciple of  guidance  to  offer  in  exchange  for  those  he  is 
intent  upon  snatching  away.  In  such  an  emergency, 
the  clear  course  is  to  let  the  work  of  destruction  take 
care  of  itself,  and  to  see  what  can  be  accomplished  in 
the  far  more  difficult  as  well  as  infinitely  more  impor- 
tant task  of  reconstructing  the  bases  of  morality  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  new  thought  and  the  growing  knowl- 
edge of  the  time.  It  is  the  positive  rather  than  the 
negative  message  of  science  that  it  concerns  us  to  un- 
derstand. 

Recognition  of  this  momentous  fact  led  Mr.  Spen- 
cer, while  working  out  the  Synthetic  Philosophy,  to  de- 
part from  the  regular  outline  as  originally  published, 
and  to  take  up  the  last  division — The  Principles  of 
Ethics — at  the  expense  of  several  intervening  portions 
of  the  scheme.  In  the  preface,  dated  July,  1879,  to 
The  Data  of  Ethics  (Part  I  of  the  completed  work),  he 
thus  wrote  in  explanation  of  his  course  of  action : 

"  I  am  the  more  anxious  to  indicate  in  outline,  if  I 
cannot  complete,  this  final  work,  because  the  establish- 
ment of  rules  of  right  conduct  on  a  scientific  basis  is  a 
pressing  need.  Xow  that  moral  injunctions  are  losing 
the  authority  given  by  their  supposed  sacred  origin,  the 
secularization  of  morals  is  becoming  imperative.  Few 

things  can  happen  more  disastrous  than  the  decay  and 

11 


150         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

death  of  a  regulative  system  no  longer  fit,  before  an- 
other and  fitter  regulative  system  has  grown  up  to 
replace  it.  Most  of  those  who  reject  the  current  creed 
appear  to  assume  that  the  controlling  agency  furnished 
by  it  may  safely  be  thrown  aside,  and  the  vacancy  left 
unfilled  by  any  other  controlling  agency.  Meanwhile, 
those  who  defend  the  current  creed  allege  that,  in  the 
absence  of  the  guidance  it  yields,  no  guidance  can  ex- 
ist :  divine  commandments  they  think  the  only  possible 
guides.  Thus,  between  these  extreme  opponents  there 
is  a  certain  community.  The  one  holds  that  the  gap 
left  by  disappearance  of  the  code  of  supernatural  ethics 
need  not  be  filled  by  a  code  of  natural  ethics ;  and  the 
other  holds  that  it  cannot  be  so  filled.  Both  contem- 
plate a  vacuum,  which  the  one  wishes  and  the  other 
fears.  As  the  change  which  promises  or  threatens  to 
bring  about  this  state,  desired  or  dreaded,  is  rapidly 
progressing,  those  who  believe  that  the  vacuum  can  be 
filled,  and  that  it  must  be  filled,  are  called  on  to  do 
something  in  pursuance  of  their  belief."  * 

This  paragraph  makes  Mr.  Spencer's  position  per- 
fectly clear.  As  before  pointed  out,  his  interests  had 
from  the  first  been  practical ;  his  earliest  publications — 
the  letters  on  The  Proper  Sphere  of  Government  and 
the  more  mature  work  on  Social  Statics — had  dealt 
with  the  actual  problems  of  the  day ;  and  the  desire  to 
apply  philosophic  principles  to  the  questions  of  social 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  vi. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         151 

growth  and  the  conduct  of  life  subsequently  inspired 
the  Synthetic  System  itself.  Properly  speaking,  then, 
all  his  other  work  led  up  to  his  Ethics ;  to  leave  that 
division  untouched,  therefore,  would  have  been  to  leave 
his  whole  enterprise,  comprehensive  and  valuable  as  it 
might  have  been  as  a  contribution  to  scientific  general- 
ization, in  the  condition  of  "  Giotto's  tower  in  the  old 
Tuscan  town  " — a  magnificent  effort,  yet  "  wanting  still 
the  glory  of  the  spire."  "  My  ultimate  purpose,"  he 
writes  in  the  preface  from  which  I  have  just  quoted, 
"  lying  behind  all  proximate  purposes,  has  been  that  of 
finding  for  the  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  in  con- 
duct at  large,  a  scientific  basis."  Naturally,  therefore, 
he  could  not  but  feel  that  "  to  leave  this  purpose  un- 
fulfilled after  making  so  extensive  a  preparation  for  ful- 
filling it,  would  be  a  failure  the  probability  of  which  " 
he  would  not  like  to  contemplate.  Hence,  during  the 
past  few  years  the  labour  spent,  amid  much  interrup- 
tion from  ill-health,  and  some  disturbance  from  other 
causes,  upon  the  Principles  of  Ethics ;  the  recent  pub- 
lication of  Parts  V  and  VI  of  which  renders  this  most 
important  of  all  modern  works  on  moral  science  at 
length  complete. 

II. 

Properly  to  appreciate  the  place  occupied  by  the 
work  of  Spencer  in  the  general  development  of  ethical 
thought,  we  must  understand  something  of  what  had 
been  done  towards  the  establishment  of  a  scientific  basis 


152         PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  morality  by  writers  who  had  preceded  him  in  the 
field.  This  will  bring  out  his  relation  to  the  doctrines 
of  the  so-called  orthodox  schools  upon  the  one  hand, 
and  to  the  theories  of  earlier  independent  thinkers  upon 
the  other. 

An  intrinsic  difference  in  principle  has  long  divided 
all  ethical  investigators,  no  matter  what  their  minor 
points  of  agreement  or  disagreement  may  be,  into  two 
great  hostile  camps,  usually  known  as  the  intuitive  or 
intuitional,  and  the  inductive  or  utilitarian.  This  fun- 
damental diversity  of  view  may  be  traced  back  dimly 
to  the  days  of  Greek  philosophy,  but  it  has  acquired  its 
immediate  importance  only  within  comparatively  recent 
days.  Through  Cudworth,  Clarke,  and  Butler  on  the 
one  side,  and  through  Hobbes,  Helvetius,  and  Bentham 
on  the  other,  we  can  follow  the  main  lines  of  divergence 
and  antagonism,  down  to  the  time  when  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  entered  the  arena,  and,  offering  a  hand  to  each 
of  the  hereditary  foes,  led  the  way  to  a  conciliation 
hitherto  undreamed  of. 

The  main  questions  at  issue  between  the  intuitionists 
and  the  utilitarians,  difficult  as  they  may  seem  in  solu- 
tion, may  be  very  briefly  stated.  They  are  the  time- 
honoured  questions  of  the  ethical  standard  and  the  moral 
sense.  What,  in  the  ultimate  analysis,  is  the  standard  or 
criterion  of  right  and  wrong  ?  And,  given  that  stand- 
ard, how  do  we  ourselves  distinguish  between  them? 
Varied  in  detail  as  were  the  answers  given  by  the  intui- 
tionists to  these  questions,  they  agreed  substantially  in 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPEXCER.         153 

this — that  both  the  criterion  of  right  and  wrong,  and  our 
own  power  of  distinguishing  between  them,  are  to  be 
sought  in  an  innate  and  divinely-implanted  moral  sense 
or  conscience.  The  human  mind  was  thus  regarded  as 
possessing  an  ultra-experiential  faculty  of  judgment  con- 
cerning conduct — a  faculty  which  is  itself  unresolvable 
into  any  simpler  elements,  and  beyond  which  there  can  be 
no  appeal.  Against  this  reply  it  was  the  mission  of  utili- 
tarianism to  enter  an  emphatic  protest.  The  followers  of 
the  newer  school  refused  to  accept  the  alleged  innate 
and  divinely-implanted  moral  sense  as  anything  more 
than  a  myth.  For  them  our  only  test  of  conduct  is  the 
test  furnished  by  experience ;  and  the  so-called  moral 
faculty  or  conscience,  so  far  from  being  immediate  and 
simple,  is  itself  merely  the  organized  registration  in  the 
modern  civilized  adult  of  his  observations  of  the  conse- 
quences of  the  actions  of  himself  and  others.  Thus, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  intuitionist,  virtue  or  right 
conduct  is  in  itself  not  only  a  proximate  but  also  an 
ultimate  end  ;  while  the  utilitarian  regards  it  as  a  proxi- 
mate end  only ;  the  ultimate  end,  which  imparts  to  it 
its  particular  quality  of  virtuousness  or  Tightness,  being 
some  kind  of  utility  which  it  is  held  to  subserve. 

This,  I  think,  is  sufficiently  exact,  as  well  as  clear ; 
yet,  as  the  point  is  of  importance,  I  will  emphasize  what 
I  have  just  said  by  an  extract  from  Mr.  Lecky,  whose 
testimony  I  select  because,  being  himself  a  strong  sup- 
porter of  the  orthodox  party,  he  will  give  us  the  most 
sympathetic  view  of  his  own  side,  together  with  a  view 


154:    PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  the  other  uncharged  by  any  possible  partisan  colour- 
ing. The  intuitional  moralists,  writes  this  distinguished 
historian,*  "  believe  that  we  have  a  natural  power  of  per- 
ceiving that  some  qualities,  such  as  benevolence,  chasti- 
ty, or  veracity,  are  better  than  others,  and  that  we  ought 
to  cultivate  them  and  repress  their  opposites.  In  other 
words,  they  contend  that,  by  the  constitution  of  our 
nature,  the  notion  of  right  carries  with  it  a  feeling  of 
obligation ;  that  to  say  a  course  of  conduct  is  our  duty, 
is  in  itself  and  apart  from  all  consequences  an  intelli- 
gible and  sufficient  reason  for  practising  it ;  and  that  we 
derive  the  first  principles  of  our  duties  from  intuition." 
The  utilitarian,  on  the  contrary,  denies  "  that  we  have 
any  such  natural  perception.  He  maintains  that  we 
have  by  nature  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  merit  and 
demerit,  of  the  comparative  merit  of  our  feelings  and 
actions,  and  that  we  derive  these  notions  solely  from  an 
observation  of  the  course  of  life  which  is  conducive  to 
human  happiness.  That  which  makes  actions  good  is 
that  they  increase  the  happiness  or  decrease  the  pains  of 
mankind.  That  which  constitutes  their  demerit  is  their 
opposite  tendency.  To  procure  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number  f  is  therefore  the  highest  aim  of 

*  History  of  European  Morals,  chap.  i.  As  I  cordially  dissent 
from  most  of  the  positions  adopted  by  the  author  in  the  introduc- 
tory chapter  from  which  the  above  quotation  is  made,  I  am  the 
more  pleased  to  express  my  admiration  of  the  learning,  honesty, 
and  acumen  which  characterize  the  whole  of  this  masterly  work. 

f  This  principle — the  greatest  happiness  principle,  as  it  is  suc- 
cinctly called — is,  of  course,  that  enunciated  by  Bentham,  the  man 


THE   ETEICAL  SYSTEM   OF  SPENCER.          155 

the  moralist — the    supreme    type    and    expression    of 
virtue." 

These,  amid  many  minor  points  of  difference,  not 
only  helping  to  separate  more  thoroughly  the  two  great 
parties  from  each  other,  but  often  breaking  up  those 
parties  themselves  into  sundry  more  or  less  closely 
segregated  clusters,  may  be  taken  as  the  most  salient 
characteristics  of  the  antagonistic  schools.  While  they 
remained,  in  their  older  forms,  the  only  important  can- 
didates for  popular  favour,  the  suffrages  of  the  world 
were  very  unequally  divided  between  them.  Besides 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  various  religious  denominations, 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  most  prominent  mor- 
alists, including  all  those  belonging  to  the  body  of  the 
Christian  Church,  gave  in  a  full  adhesion  to  the  intui- 
tionist  doctrines.  The  transcendental  nature  of  moral- 
ity was  the  central  principle  around  which  men  of  the 
most  diverse  theological  and  social  views  were  called 
upon  to  rally ;  and  the  orthodox  army,  no  matter  how 
much  its  champions  might  be  divided  among  them- 
selves, thus  presented  a  solid  front  to  the  enemy.  The 
other  side  was  never  popular ;  but  it  made  up  for  this 


with  whose  name  the  system  of  the  older  utilitarianism  is  most 
intimately  associated.  It  will  be  found  stated  and  developed  in 
his  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,  first 
published  in  1789.  The  principle  itself  has  from  that  time  down- 
ward been  the  object  of  violent  attack  at  the  hands  of  the  intui- 
tional party :  but  perhaps  the  keenest  criticism  that  it  has  ever 
been  subjected  to  is  that  contained  in  the  Data  of  Ethics,  chap, 
xiii. 


150         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

by  attracting  to  itself  some  of  the  clearest-headed  and 
most  original  thinkers  of  the  time,  making  a  special 
appeal  to  men  of  skeptical  tendencies,  as  well  as  to  those 
trained  in  scientific  methods  of  investigation. 

We  need  here  touch  upon  those  aspects  only  of  the 
old  intuitional-utilitarian  controversy  which  will  help 
to  bring  into  conspicuous  relief  the  signal  advantages 
achieved  by  the  application  of  evolutionary  principles 
to  the  theoretic  issues  involved.  A  glance  at  the  posi- 
tions respectively  taken  up  by  the  two  parties  on  the 
question  of  the  moral  sense  will,  for  this  purpose,  place 
us  at  the  proper  point  of  view. 

Let  us  notice,  then,  that  the  diversity  of  moral  sen- 
timents and  ideas  exhibited  by  different  peoples,  and 
by  the  same  peoples  at  different  stages  of  their  growth, 
is  a  problem  which  the  intuitionists  have  never  yet  met 
with  anything  like  a  satisfactory  solution.  We  are  told 
that  there  are  many  religions,  but  only  one  morality. 
This  is  true  in  a  sense,  but  not  by  any  means  in  the 
sense  intended  by  those  by  whom  the  phrase  is  currently 
employed.  The  statement,  which  indeed  smacks  sig- 
nificantly of  the  attractive  humanitarianism  of  eight- 
eenth-century philosophy,  might  have  passed  unques- 
tioned at  a  time  when  sociological  speculation  was  so 
entirely  untrammelled  by  any  reference  to  fact  that  men 
like  Morelly  and  Kousseau  could  discourse  eloquently 
of  a  mythical  state  of  Nature  and  a  purely  hypothetical 
barbarism,  and  indignantly  ask  an  artificial  society  to 
contrast  man  as  the  product  of  civilization  with  man 


THE   ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         157 

in  his  primitive  condition  of  freedom  and  happy  in- 
nocence. But  what  might  have  done  well  enough  in 
Rousseau's  day  will  not  do  in  ours.  Progress  in  ethno- 
logical and  anthropological  research  has  given  us  the 
real  savage  in  place  of  the  savage  of  our  imagination ; 
and  instead  of  arguing  as  to  what  uncivilized  man  might 
have  been  and  (in  view  of  our  theories)  ought  to  have 
been,  we  must  now  take  him,  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
as  he  has  been  and  is.  We  have  to  remember  that  the 
intuitional  doctrine  of  the  moral  sense  is  an  inheritance 
from  a  period  when  practically  nothing  was  known  of 
the  actual  history  of  our  race ;  *  it  was  constructed  in 
reference  to  supposed  theoretic  necessities,  and  not  upon 
an  examination  of  facts,  and  it  would  have  been  sur- 
prising enough,  therefore,  if  it  could  meet  the  results 
of  exact  and  thorough  investigation  without  serious  and 
essential  change.  An  inductive  study  of  the  diversities 
of  moral  theory  and  practice,  made  possible  by  our 
modern  science  of  comparative  culture,  suffices  to  show 
us  at  once  that  we  are  not  speaking  too  strongly  when 
we  say  that,  so  far  from  ethical  sanctions  indicating  the 
existence  of  anything  like  fundamental  similarity,  we 
are  rather  justified  in  asserting  that  there  is  no  crime, 
recognized  by  us  as  such,  which  has  not  somewhere  and 
at  some  time  found  its  place  in  the  catalogue  of  virtues, 
and  no  virtue  which  has  not  been  officially  condemned. 


*  "  Inquiring  into  the  pedigree  of  an  idea  is  not  a  bad  means 
of  roughly  estimating  its  value  "  (The  Nebular  Hypothesis). 


158         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Even  in  extreme  cases  the  statement  will  be  found  to 
hold  good.  The  murderous  Fijian's  only  fear  is  lest  he 
should  not  be  active  enough  in  slaughter  to  win  the 
approbation  of  his  gods ;  with  the  Egyptian,  lying  is 
honourable ;  while  the  Turkoman's  code  of  moral  injunc- 
tions prescribes  theft.  Nor  when  we  compare  civilized 
nations  with  one  another  do  we  find  the  results  less 
significant.  Polygamy,  wrong  in  Europe  and  America, 
is  right  and  proper  in  China,  India,  and  Turkey ;  while 
infanticide,  a  practice  that  we  hold  in  utter  abhorrence, 
was  not  only  common  in  Greece  and  Rome,  but  was 
even  justified  by  the  greatest  ethical  teachers  of  an- 
tiquity, Plato  and  Aristotle,  who  also  held  views  con- 
cerning the  relations  of  the  sexes  which  we  should  look 
on  as  revolting.  On  any  theory  of  a  transcendental 
God-given  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  these  facts  present 
difficulties  that,  but  for  the  overwhelming  influence  of 
preconceived  ideas,  would  at  once  have  been  recognized 
as  absolutely  insuperable.  An  attempt  has  indeed  been 
made  to  turn  the  edge  of  the  objection  by  the  statement 
that,  notwithstanding  such  variations  of  sentiment  and 
conduct,  some  idea  of  right  and  wrong  is  always  present. 
But  this  assertion  practically  abandons  the  only  posi- 
tion in  the  intuitional  theory  that  is  worth  fighting  for, 
since,  in  the  first  place,  it  allows  the  definite  and  clear- 
cut  claim  originally  put  forth  to  lapse  into  one  too 
vague  and  indefinite  to  be  of  any  real  service ;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  it  introduces  the  elements  of  educa- 
tion and  environment — the  very  elements  that  the  in- 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM   OF  SPENCER.         159 

tuitionists  are  naturally  most  anxious  to  keep  out  of  the 
account.  If  the  conscience  is,  after  all  that  has  been 
said  for  it,  nothing  more  than  a  plastic  and  capricious 
faculty,  which,  instead  of  being  a  permanent,  infallible, 
and  absolute  guide,  may  be  so  warped  and  distorted  as 
to  prompt  here  to  theft  and  there  to  murder,  while  in 
other  places  theft  and  murder  take  rank  among  the 
most  heinous  crimes,  then  what  becomes  of  the  divine 
voice  within  us?  and  wherein  is  the  extra-experiential 
moral  sense  one  whit  more  sacred  than  any  sense  that 
might  be  acquired?  Surely  the  oracles  of  God  should 
speak  with  no  uncertain  sound,  if  they  are  to  make  good 
their  claim  to  a  divine  origin  and  mission. 

These  difficulties  in  the  intuitional  theory  early  pre- 
sented themselves  to  Mr.  Spencer,  though  not  till  after  he 
had  practically  committed  himself  to  that  theory  in  his 
published  work.  In  his  recent  Inductions  of  Ethics 
(where  the  whole  ground  of  moral  divergences  is  covered 
in  considerable  detail)  he  writes  (§  191):  "Though,  as 
shown  in  my  first  work,  Social  Statics,  I  once  espoused 
the  doctrine  of  the  intuitive  moralists  (at  the  outset  in 
full,  and  in  later  chapters  with  some  implied  qualifica- 
tions), yet  it  has  gradually  become  clear  to  me  that  the 
qualifications  required  practically  obliterate  the  doctrine 
as  enunciated  by  them.  It  has  become  clear  to  me  that 
if,  among  ourselves,  the  current  belief  is  that  a  man  who 
robs  and  does  not  repent  will  be  eternally  damned,  while 
an  accepted  proverb  among  the  Bilochs  is  that  '  God 
will  not  favour  a  man  who  does  not  steal  and  rob,'  it  is 


160         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

impossible  to  hold  that  men  have  in  common  an  innate 
perception  of  right  and  wrong." 

Against  the  orthodox  intuitionists,  therefore,  the 
utilitarians  undoubtedly  possessed  a  strong  case,  since 
the  old  claim  concerning  conscience  as  an  extra-experi- 
ential element  of  the  mind  crumbled  to  pieces  the  mo- 
ment it  was  brought  to  the  touchstone  of  fact.  But, 
though  the  labour  of  destruction  was  easy,  the  labour  of 
construction  presented  perplexities  almost  as  great  as 
those  which  the  intuitionists  had  found  blocking  their 
path.  It  was  one  thing  to  show  that  the  moral  faculty 
could  not  be  regarded  as  simple,  independent,  and  tran- 
scendental ;  it  was  quite  another  thing  to  present  a  tena- 
ble hypothesis  of  its  existence,  and  of  the  authoritative- 
ness  it  undoubtedly  possesses  in  the  mind  of  the  average 
civilized  man. 

Hence,  even  in  the  hands  of  its  ablest  exponents,  the 
utilitarian  theory  remained  in  a  crude  and  unsatisfactory 
shape.  The  problem  that  it  sought  to  solve,  though 
rightly  recognized  by  it  as  a  problem  within  the  limits 
of  scientific  investigation,  was  for  the  time  being  beyond 
the  reach  of  its  resources  and  power.  The  conscience  is 
not  original  and  independent :  true ;  but,  then,  whence 
and  how  is  it  derived?  That  was  the  knotty  question, 
to  which  the  intuitionists  naturally  demanded  a  reply. 
Bentham,  who,  though  not  theoretically  the  founder  of 
utilitarianism,  was  the  first  to  endeavour  to  make  utility 
the  basis  of  a  coherent  moral  system,  was  himself  no  psy- 
chologist, and  never  approached  the  problems  of  ethics 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER. 

from  the  psychological  side ;  but  several  of  his  followers, 
notably  the  two  Mills,  saw  this  vulnerable  spot  in  his 
armour,  and  attempted  to  make  it  good.  The  follow- 
ing extract  from  the  younger  of  the  just-named  writers 
will  probably  give,  in  brief,  the  best  specimen  of  the 
most  advanced  utilitarian  speculation  on  this  important 
point : 

"  The  internal  sanction  of  duty,  whatever  our  stand- 
ard of  duty  may  be,  is  one  and  the  same — a  feeling  in 
our  own  mind ;  a  pain,  more  or  less  intense,  attendant 
on  violation  of  duty,  which  in  properly-cultivated  moral 
natures  rises  in  the  more  serious  cases  into  shrinking 
from  it  as  an  impossibility.  This  feeling,  when  disin- 
terested, and  connecting  itself  with  the  pure  idea  of 
duty,  and  not  with  some  particular  form  of  it,  or  with 
any  of  the  merely  accessory  circumstances,  is  the  essence 
of  conscience ;  though  in  that  complex  phenomenon  as 
it  actually  exists  the  simple  fact  is  in  general  all  in- 
crusted  over  with  collateral  associations,  derived  from 
sympathy,  from  love,  and  still  more  from  fear ;  from  all 
the  forms  of  religious  feeling ;  from  the  recollections  of 
childhood  and  of  all  our  past  life;  from  self-esteem, 
desire  of  the  esteem  of  others,  and  occasionally  even  self- 
abasement.  This  extreme  complication  is,  I  apprehend, 
the  origin  of  the  sort  of  mystical  character  which,  by  a 
tendency  of  the  human  mind  of  which  there  are  many 
other  examples,  is  apt  to  be  attributed  to  the  idea  of 
moral  obligation,  and  which  leads  people  to  believe  that 
the  idea  cannot  possibly  attach  itself  to  any  other  objects 


162         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

than  those  which,  by  a  supposed  mysterious  law,  are 
found  in  our  present  experience  to  excite  it.  Its  bind- 
ing force,  however,  consists  in  the  existence  of  a  mass  of 
feeling  which  must  be  broken  through  in  order  to  do 
what  violates  our  standard  of  right,  and  which,  if  we  do 
nevertheless  violate  that  standard,  will  probably  have  to 
be  encountered  afterwards  in  the  form  of  remorse. 
Whatever  theory  we  have  of  the  nature  or  origin  of 
conscience,  this  is  what  essentially  constitutes  it."  * 

In  Mill's  view,  therefore,  as  in  that  of  the  other 
members  of  his  school,  the  moral  sense  arises  in  each  in- 
dividual as  the  result  of  his  own  experience  of  the  con- 
nection between  actions  and  their  consequences,  intrinsic 
and  extrinsic,  immediate* and  remote.  Observation  of 
the  direct  and  indirect  pains  entailed  by  certain  evil 
courses  of  conduct,  which  we  thus  learn  to  avoid  alto- 
gether, or  to  follow  at  our  peril,  together  with  the  in- 
delible impressions  left  by  early  education  and  various 
environing  influences  during  our  plastic  years,  enter 
as  most  considerable  factors  into  the  building  up  of 
the  complex  moral  sense ;  while  an  equally  important 
though  more  subtle  part  is  played  by  the  principle  of 
association.  Pain  and  wrong  action,  pleasure  and  right 
action,  are  found  in  interconnection  with  striking  regu- 

*  Utilitarianism,  chap.  iii.  In  their  analysis  of  the  conscience 
the  older  utilitarians  do  not  seem  to  have  advanced  much  beyond 
the  point  reached  by  Dr.  David  Hartley  (1705-1757),  who  intro- 
duced into  the  consideration  of  the  moral  sense  the  important 
element  of  association,  which  he  was  the  first  to  apply  systemat- 
ically to  the  general  phenomena  of  the  mind. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         163 

larity  and  persistence ;  whence,  in  accordance  with  the 
well-known  psychological  law,  right  and  wrong,  at  first 
regarded  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  conse- 
quences, come  at  length  to  have  a  direct  power  of  appeal, 
and  are  sought  or  avoided,  loved  or  hated,  for  their  own 
sakes.  Meanwhile,  the  abstract  idea  of  Tightness  and 
duty  is  conceived  as  arising,  like  other  abstract  ideas,  by 
generalization  from  countless  experiences  of  concrete 
cases  of  right  and  duty ;  while  the  sense  of  coerciveness 
or  obligation  at  large  is  interpreted  as  a  result,  immedi- 
ately and  by  association,  of  the  influence  exercised  upon 
the  growing  nature  by  the  rigid  discipline  and  sustained 
authority  of  the  organized  society  in  which,  and  the 
governmental  agencies  under  which,  the  civilized  indi- 
vidual develops  to  man's  estate. 

Now,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  wherein  this 
alleged  explanation,  suggestive  as  it  doubtless  is,  must  be 
regarded  as  paradoxically  insufficient  to  meet  the  prob- 
lem upon  its  most  important  side.  While  recognizing 
to  the  full  the  power  of  education,  environment,  and  as- 
sociation, we  still  find  ourselves  unable  to  understand 
how,  within  the  lifetime  of  the  single  individual,  the 
idea  of  virtue  as  a  separate,  independent,  and  self -exist- 
ent conception,  could  ever  be  generated  out  of  and 
emerge  from  the  mere  personal  observation  of  the  per- 
sistent connection  between  certain  courses  of  conduct 
and  certain  accompanying  results.  Serious  as  is  the  ob- 
jection thus  suggested  of  inadequacy  of  means  to  end,  it 
becomes  still  more  serious  when  we  remember  that  the 


164:         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

specified  connection  between  right  action  and  pleasur- 
able results  can  scarcely  be  said  to  persist  within  the 
limits  of  our  own  individual  experiences  with  the  con- 
stancy and  regularity  that  the  argument  appears  to 
demand.  Could  there  ever  in  this  way  arise  such  a  con- 
ception of  rectitude  as  that  which  Tennyson  embodies 
in  the  famous  lines : 

"And  because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right 
Is  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence  "  1 

Simple  or  complex,  innate  or  derived,  the  moral  faculty, 
as  we  find  it  in  the  normal  product  of  civilization,  acts, 
if  not  with  absolute  uniformity,  still  with  an  immediate- 
ness  and  average  certainty  sufficient  to  make  us  pause 
before  endorsing  any  theory  that  refuses  to  take  us 
further  in  the  matter  than  the  individual's  organized 
experiences  of  pleasures  and  pains.  The  issue  may  be 
dealt  with  on  the  grounds  of  common  sense.  According 
to  the  utilitarian  hypothesis,  each  infant  born  into  the 
world  starts  absolutely  afresh.  The  mind  is  a  tabula 
rasa,  with  no  innate  ideas,  no  intuitions  of  any  kind. 
Upon  this  the  environment  is  supposed  to  work ;  and 
the  simple  question  is,  whether  the  organization  and 
registration  of  personal  observations,  impressions,  and 
experiences,  during  the  comparatively  few  years  of 
childhood  and  adolescence,  can  be  fairly  taken  to  ac- 
count for  all  that  we  know  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
moral  faculty  as  it  exists  within  ourselves  in  the  period 
of  adult  life  ?  It  is  surely  not  strange  that  the  intui- 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         165 

tional  school  declined  to  answer  this  question  in  the 
affirmative. 

The  dispute  between  the  two  opposed  theories  of 
morals  may,  therefore,  be  said  to  have  reached  a  dead- 
lock. Each  side  had  found  the  weak  point  in  the  other's 
system,  while  at  the  same  time  each  failed  to  secure 
from  attack  its  own.  And  now  we  are  in  a  position  to 
appreciate  the  flood  of  new  light  that  was  suddenly  let 
in  upon  the  whole  controversy  by  the  rise  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  profound  differences  that 
separated  them,  the  two  older  schools  possessed  a  single 
characteristic  in  common.  Both  had  based  their  argu- 
ments and  formulated  their  conclusions  upon  the  con- 
ceptions of  special  creation  and  fixed  types;  and  the 
discussion,  with  the  full  consent  of  both  contending 
parties,  had  been  in  this  way  limited  in  range  to  the  ex- 
periences of  the  individual  life.  Could  the  conscience 
ever  have  arisen  after  the  manner  alleged,  within  the 
span  of  the  separate  mortal  career  ?  This  was  the  form 
that  the  issue  had  taken;  and  to  the  question  in  this 
shape  one  side  had  answered  Yes,  and  the  other  No. 
Evolution  at  once  widened  the  issue.  Behind  the  indi- 
vidual it  placed  the  race ;  behind  civilized  humanity, 
the  ages  of  barbarism  and  animality,  out  of  which, 
through  untold  centuries,  we  have  been  slowly  and  pain- 
fully struggling  upward  into  higher  developments  of 
life.  The  problem  was  no  longer  that  of  explaining  the 

flue  sensitive  conscience  of  the  modern  adult  Caucasian 

12 


166         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

as  the  outgrowth  of  a  few  years  of  personal  intercourse 
with  his  environment.  The  gradually-acquired  experi- 
ences of  countless  generations,  slowly  registered  through 
long  periods  of  social  consolidation,  and  handed  down 
from  age  to  age  as  slight  but  persistent  modifications  in 
the  nervous  organization  of  evolving  man — these  were 
the  new  factors  which  the  development  theory  intro- 
duced into  the  discussion.  An  explanation  which  had 
properly  been  condemned  as  absurdly  inadequate,  so 
long  as  attention  was  confined  to  the  brief  terms  of  a 
separate  life,  assumed,  immediately  that  account  was 
taken  of  the  element  of  hereditary  transmission,  the 
appearance  of  a  rational  and  complete  solution  of  the 
problem.  In  merging  the  life  history  of  each  single 
generation  in  the  life  history  not  only  of  the  human 
race  at  large,  but  of  all  sentient  existence,  and  in  pos- 
tulating the  thread  of  continuity  that,  running  through 
almost  imperceptible  gradations,  binds  the  highest 
forms  to  the  lowest,  the  evolutionist  at  once  secured 
a  new  standpoint,  and  escaped  the  obvious  charge  of 
extravagance  or  specious  reasoning.  In  this  way  evo- 
lution, having,  as  we  have  already  seen,  reconciled 
the  adverse  claims  of  the  psychological  schools  of 
Locke  and  Kant,  now  also  stepped  forward  to  make 
peace  between  the  hereditary  foes — the  intuitionists 
and  the  utilitarians.  It  showed  that  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  conscience  each  side  had  part  of  the  truth, 
and  neither  side  the  whole  truth.  The  moral  sense, 
like  what  we  know  as  instinct,  while  innate  and  extra- 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         167 

experiential  in  the  individual,  is  acquired  and  depend- 
ent in  the  race.* 

The  attitude  of  the  evolutionary  moralist,  thus  made 
clear,  will  be  made  clearer  still  by  the  following  extract 
from  a  letter  written  many  years  ago  by  Mr.  Spencer  to 
Mr.  Mill,  and  subsequently  published,  in  part,  in  the 
Data  of  Ethics : 

"To  make  my  position  fully  understood,  it  seems 
needful  to  add  that  corresponding  to  the  fundamental 
propositions  of  a  developed  moral  science  there  have 
been  and  still  are  developing  in  the  race  certain  fun- 
damental moral  intuitions;  and  that  though  these 
moral  intuitions  are  the  results  of  accumulated  expe- 
riences of  utility,  gradually  organized  and  inherited, 
they  have  come  to  be  quite  independent  of  conscious 
experience.  Just  in  the  same  way  that  I  believe  the 
intuition  of  space,  possessed  by  any  living  individual, 
to  have  arisen  from  organized  and  consolidated  expe- 
periences  of  all  antecedent  individuals  who  bequeathed 


*  It  is  only  just  to  notice  that  the  claim  for  an  original  and 
non-derivative  moral  sense  has  been  very  differently  interpreted 
by  different  members  of  the  older  intuitional  school.  Kant,  for 
instance,  by  far  the  greatest  thinker  among  them  all,  distinctly 
admits,  in  his  Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  that  the  moral  im- 
perative, conceived  by  him  as  transcendental,  is  transcendental 
only  as  to  form.  The  content  is  derived.  In  other  words,  it  gives 
the  general  sense  of  duty  or  obligation ;  but  for  our  knowledge  of 
what  constitutes  right  and  wrong  in  any  particular  case  we  have 
still  to  go  back  to  experience.  This,  of  course,  is  a  far  less  gener- 
ous demand  than  that  made  by  the  average  intuitionist,  and,  in- 
deed, yields  half  the  case  to  the  utilitarian. 


168         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

to  him  their  slowly  developed  nervous  organizations — 
just  as  I  believe  that  this  intuition,  requiring  only  to 
be  made  definite  and  complete  by  personal  experiences, 
has  practically  become  a  form  of  thought,  apparently 
quite  independent  of  experience ;  so  do  I  believe  that  the 
experiences  of  utility  organized  and  consolidated  through 
all  past  generations  of  the  human  race  have  been  pro- 
ducing corresponding  nervous  modifications,  which,  by 
continued  transmission  and  accumulation,  have  become 
in  us  certain  faculties  of  moral  intuition — certain  emo- 
tions responding  to  right  and  wrong  conduct,  which 
have  no  apparent  basis  in  the  individual  experiences  of 
utility.  I  also  hold  that  just  as  the  space  intuition  re- 
sponds to  the  exact  demonstrations  of  geometry,  and 
has  its  rough  conclusions  interpreted  and  verified  by 
them,  so  will  moral  intuitions  respond  to  the  demon- 
strations of  moral  science,  and  will  have  their  rough 
conclusions  interpreted  and  verified  by  them." 

Careful  perusal  of  the  above  extract  will  enable  us  to 
understand  Mr.  Spencer's  emphatic  protest,  made  earlier 
in  the  same  letter,  against  being  classed  among  the  anti- 
utilitarians,  and  will  suggest,  as  well,  those  important 
differences  that  separate  him  from  the  older  school,  to 
which  we  must  revert  directly.  But  beyond  this,  it  brings 
us  round  to  a  point  at  which  we  may  touch  again  upon 
a  question  already  referred  to — the  question  as  to  how 
far  it  is  true  that  the  evolutionary  theory  has  introduced 
any  new  elements  into  our  ethical  considerations.  It 
will  be  seen  that  it  has  actually  discarded  neither  of  the 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         169 

two  great  contradictory  doctrines  that  it  found  in  pos- 
session of  the  field  ;  and  in  that  sense,  if  by  new  we  are 
to  understand  something  absolutely  unconnected  with 
previous  investigation,  it  may  be  urged  that  nothing 
new  has  been  given  us  as  a  consequence  of  its  application 
to  the  issues  involved.  But  a  new  theory  in  science  is 
seldom  like  a  new  fashion  in  dress ;  it  is  rarely  more 
than  a  modification,  or  adaptation  or  re-interpretation, 
of  some  theory  or  theories  already  accepted  in  whole  or 
in  part ;  and  the  revelation,  when  it  comes  to  shake  the 
world,  most  frequently  brings  nothing  beyond  a  new 
attitude,  a  fresh  adjustment  of  familiar  ideas,  or  a  sud- 
den flash  of  light  into  some  detail  hitherto  unperceived. 
The  effect  of  evolution  upon  the  older  moral  thought  is 
a  case  in  illustration.  It  came  not  so  much  to  destroy 
as  to  fulfil.  For  it  has  placed  the  doctrines  of  both  the 
intuitionists  and  the  utilitarians  on  a  new  basis  and  in 
a  new  light;  it  has  harmonized  their  differences  by 
showing  their  partial  and  supplementary  character ;  and 
by  promulgating  a  theory  of  the  moral  sense  which 
covers  all  the  facts  advanced  by  both  sides,  while  it 
avoids  the  difficulties  which  each  had  found  insuperable, 
it  has  brought  the  whole  matter  for  the  first  time 
within  the  range  of  scientific  treatment. 

Nor  must  we  overlook  the  substantial  contribution 
that  evolution  has  made  to  the  discussion  of  the  peren- 
nial problem  of  evil.  The  existence  of  this  disturbing 
factor  in  the  moral  universe  has,  more  than  any  other 
question,  agitated  the  human  mind  from  the  time  of 


170         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Job  downward,  and  with  the  progress  of  knowledge 
and  the  expansion  of  thought  has  given  rise,  in  sys- 
tems of  theology  and  philosophy,  to  the  most  ingenious 
hypotheses  and  fantastic  speculations.  Evolution  en- 
ables us  to  read  at  least  some  meaning  and  harmony 
into  the  turmoil  and  discord  of  the  world.  Here,  again, 
the  explanation  it  offers  us  is  not  marked  by  any  abso- 
lute originality.  Glimpses  of  the  truth  that  evil  is,  so 
to  speak,  nothing  but  the  friction  due  to  the  imperfect 
adaptation  of  human  nature  to  social  conditions,  have 
from  time  to  time  been  caught  by  thinkers  of  various 
schools ;  and  Pope,  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century, 
was  only  voicing  the  opinions  of  a  large  body  of  philoso- 
phers, when,  working  at  second-hand  over  the  doctrines 
of  Leibnitzian  optimism,  he  wrote : 

"  All  Nature  is  but  art  unknown  to  thee ; 
All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see; 
All  discord,  harmony  not  understood ; 
All  partial  evil,  universal  good."  * 

But  these  guesses  and  conjectures  were  of  no  scientific 
value  whatever,  and  were  at  most  nothing  but  faint 
adumbrations  of  that  interpretation  which  evolution 
makes  possible  for  us  by  turning  back  over  the  long 
past  history  of  our  race,  and  tracing  out  the  struggle  of 
the  pre-social  instinct  with  the  conditions  of  social  life. 
The  modern  doctrine  of  human  development,  if  it  leaves 
the  teleology  of  the  subject  still  involved  in  the  old 
mystery  (since  any  question  of  why  the  particular  line 

*  Essay  on  Man,  i,  289-292. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OP  SPENCER. 

of  progress  revealed  by  evolution  was  necessary  still  re- 
mains, from  the  metaphysical  side,  unsolved  and  insol- 
uble), at  all  events  replaces  by  a  statement  of  fact  and 
induction  the  nebulous  theories  formerly  in  vogue.  The 
patristic  dogma  of  the  fall  of  man  is  banished  to  the 
limbo  of  outgrown  superstitions,  along  with  all  the  Au- 
gustinian  subtleties  founded  upon  it ;  and  what  we  have 
officially  called  sin,  so  far  from  having  any  supernatural 
causes  or  implications,  we  can  now  recognize  as  an  in- 
evitable accompaniment  of  the  slow  and  painful  adjust- 
ment of  the  natures  of  men  to  the  circumstances  and 
requirements  of  the  associated  state.  The  old  Adam 
within  us  is  the  Adam  of  the  pre-social  stages  of  human 
history — the  impulses  of  barbarism,  the  unrectified  ego- 
istic emotions  of  the  dweller  in  cave  and  wilderness, 
which  will  from  day  to  day  burst  loose  and  declare 
themselves,  despite  the  long  discipline  to  which  man- 
kind has  been  subjected  through  centuries  of  progress- 
ing civilization.  Every  time  we  give  way  to  such  im- 
pulses the  old  barbarian  rises  within  us,  and  temporarily 
reasserts  his  power.  Scratch  the  Russian  and  you  will 
find  the  Tartar  just  beneath — so  runs  the  proverb;  and 
in  the  great  mass  of  men  the  morality  of  civilization  is 
as  yet  hardly  more  than  skin-deep.  As  with  the  ship 
in  Ibsen's  grim  and  terrible  poem,*  our  modern  society 


*  Rhymed  Epistle  —  a  strange  production,  based  upon  the 
sailors'  superstitious  dread  of  making  a  voyage  with  a  corpse  on 
board,  and  written  in  answer  to  the  question  of  a  friend  as  to  what 
was  amiss  with  the  present  age. 


172         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

carries  with  it  a  corpse  in  the  cargo — the  unbridled 
elemental  passions,  the  brute  instincts,  the  fierce  tend- 
encies of  primitive  man,  handed  down  to  us  by  the 
ages  of  the  past. 

What  new  significance  is  in  this  way  given  to  the 
oft-repeated  phrase  which  describes  the  criminal  classes 
as  the  failures  of  civilization !  They  are  the  representa- 
tives of  the  savage  left  over  in  the  midst  of  our  more 
developed  life,  guided  by  the  savage's  predatory  in- 
stincts, living  in  a  state  of  natural  enmity  with  those 
about  them,  preying  upon  their  fellows,  to  whom  they 
offer  nothing  in  return,  and  thus  remaining  uninte- 
grated  into  the  great  organization  of  mutual-dependent 
parts  which  constitutes  society.  The  moral  progress  of 
man,  as  Mr.  John  Fiske  has  put  it,  is  the  gradual  pro- 
cess of  "  throwing  off  the  brute  inheritance."  The  law 
of  morality  becomes  more  emphatically  than  ever  the 
law  of  the  higher  life ;  sin  is  degeneration — a  tendency 
towards  reversion  to  the  pre-social  or  animal  type ;  and 
the  ethical  ideal  of  evolution,  in  Tennyson's  language, 

is  to 

"  Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die."  * 

III. 

The  ethical  system  of  Mr.  Spencer,  then,  is  utili- 
tarian, but  not  in  the  narrow  sense  in  which  the  word 

*  In  Memoriam,  118.  Tennyson  has  given  poetic  expression 
to  the  same  evolutionary  thought  in  other  places,  notably  in  his 
later  poems,  The  Dawn,  and  The  Making  of  Man. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         173 

utilitarian  was  formerly  employed.  The  filial  criterion, 
as  well  as  the  ultimate  end  of  universal  conduct,  is 
taken  to  be  happiness,  pleasure,  or  well-being ;  *  that  is 
to  say,  in  the  last  analysis,  that  course  of  action,  and 
that  course  alone,  can  be  held  to  be  absolutely  right 
which  meets  this  criterion  and  helps  towards  achieve- 
ment of  this  end.  But  while  the  utilitarianism  of  Ben- 
tham  and  the  Mills  was  merely  empirical,  Spencer's 
utilitarianism  is  rational.  To  make  this  difference  clear 
will  be  to  bring  into  relief  the  elements  that  are  most 
noteworthy  and  characteristic  in  Mr.  Spencer's  ethical 
teaching,  considered  on  its  scientific  side. 

All  the  old  moral  systems  have,  as  we  have  already 
intimated,  been  uniformly  characterized  by  non-recogni- 
tion of  the  principle  of  causation.  Whether  the  posi- 
tion taken  was  that  the  revealed  will  of  Deity  is  the 
sole  ground  of  duty  (as  by  the  theological  moralists 
strictly  so  called),  or  that  our  knowledge  of  right  and 
wrong  can  come  only  through  the  instrumentality  of  a 
supernaturally-given  conscience  (as  taught  by  the  ortho- 
dox intuitionists),  or  that  distinction  in  conduct  arises 

*  The  tendency  of  language  is  almost  always  towards  degenera- 
tion, and  it  is  sometimes  a  hard  struggle  to  prevent  our  ideas  from 
following  our  speech.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  word  pleasure 
has  come  to  be  generally  used  for  the  criterion  and  end  mentioned 
above.  The  word  is  objectionable  on  account  of  its  connotations ; 
the  idea  called  up  is  too  limited  in  character,  and  has  been  seriously 
vitiated  by  evil  associations.  Happiness,  though  better,  is  still  not 
wholly  satisfactory.  Perhaps  well-being,  with  its  wider  sweep  of 
meaning  and  absence  of  historic  taint,  is  the  best  word  for  the 
purpose. 


174         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

only  by  governmental  enactment  (as  maintained  in  the 
political  doctrine  of  Hobbes  and  his  disciples),  the  im- 
plication was  still  the  same.  All  these  schools,  so  widely 
separated  from  one  another  at  every  other  point,  agree 
substantially  in  this :  that  they  regard  the  Tightness  and 
wrongness  of  actions  as  qualities  not  necessarily  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  the  actions  themselves,  but  impressed 
upon  them  by  some  extraneous  and  independent  au- 
thority. Do  we  know  that  a  certain  action  is  wrong 
only  because  of  a  divine  revelation  through  Scripture  or 
conscience,  or  because  of  legislation  directed  against  it  ? 
Then  the  statement  implies  that  we  could  learn  the 
wrongness  of  the  said  action  in  no  other  way — not  even 
by  observation  of  its  results ;  and  this  is  tantamount  to 
saying  that  the  action  has  not,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
certain  invariable  consequences.  But  this  leads  us  at 
once  into  an  unforeseen  dilemma.  For  if  the  supposed 
wrong  action  does  not  tend  necessarily  to  produce  cer- 
tain evil  consequences — that  is,  if  its  wrongness  is  not 
inherent,  but  accidental — then  how  are  we  the  better  off 
for  knowing  that  it  is  wrong  ?  The  world  might  go  on 
its  way  just  as  well,  so  far  as  present  things  are  con- 
cerned, in  the  absence  of  the  supernaturally-revealed  or 
state-given  knowledge,  and  all  need  for  divine  or  legis- 
lative interference  forthwith  disappears.  But  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  divine  or  legislative  interference  is  sup- 
posed to  be  required  because  the  welfare  of  the  world 
will  be  furthered  by  the  knowledge,  then  this  means,  if 
it  means  anything,  that  the  evil  .action  does  tend  to  pro- 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM   OF  SPENCER.         175 

duce  certain  invariable  consequences ;  and  if  this  is  so, 
then  why  cannot  we  study  these  consequences  for  our- 
selves, and  reach  a  knowledge  of  the  wrongness  of  the 
action  by  induction,  or  deduction,  or  both  ?  Out  of  this 
logical  labyrinth  there  seems  no  way  of  escape ;  and  the 
whole  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  necessary 
tendency  of  actions  is  overlooked — from  the  fact,  in 
other  words,  that  the  element  of  causation  in  conduct  is 
left  out  of  the  account.* 

Now,  this  weakness  in  older  ethical  speculations  is 
precisely  what  the  general  nature  of  those  speculations, 
and  the  intellectual  character  of  the  times  from  which 
they  date,  would  lead  us  to  expect.  But  we  are  not  so 
fully  prepared  to  find  the  same  weakness,  though  not  in 
so  pronounced  a  form,  manifesting  itself  in  the  doctrines 
of  the  utilitarian  school.  Even  in  utilitarianism,  recog- 
nition of  causation  is  far  from  complete. 

And  here  we  revert  to  a  statement  already  made : 
that  the  older  utilitarianism  had  not  advanced  beyond 
the  empirical  stage  in  its  treatment  of  moral  phenom- 
ena. Its  method  was  that  of  induction  only.  When 
observations  of  the  results  of  various  courses  of  conduct 
have  been  made  in  numerous  cases,  and  with  sufficient 
care,  a  generalization  is  possible,  and  the  inductive  state- 
ment is  reached  that  certain  actions  do  uniformly  give 
rise  to  evil  results,  while  certain  others  bring  with  them 


*  The  line  of  argument  adopted  in  this  and  the  following  para- 
graphs is  worked  out  in  detail  in  the  Data  of  Ethics,  chap.  iv. 


176         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

results  of  an  opposite  kind.  Inferences  from  such  a 
generalization  may  then  be  taken  as  rules  of  conduct ; 
since  actions  that  have  been  followed  by  certain  con- 
sequences in  the  countless  cases  submitted  to  analysis 
may  fairly  be  supposed  to  have  in  themselves  a  tendency 
to  produce  those  consequences.  But  here  utilitarianism 
stopped.  The  important  step  in  advance  taken  by  Mr. 
Spencer  lies  in  his  attempt  to  convert  the  principles  of 
conduct  thus  reached,  from  truths  of  the  empirical  into 
truths  of  the  rational  order,  by  showing  not  only  that, 
as  inductively  proved,  certain  actions  are  habitually  ac- 
companied by  certain  results,  but  also  that  it  has  to  be 
deductively  proved  that  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
these  results  must  go  along  with  them.  Only  in  this 
way  can  the  element  of  causation  be  fully  recognized ; 
only  in  this  way,  therefore,  can  we  have  a  science  of 
ethics  properly  so  called.* 

From  Mr.  Spencer's  letter  to  Mr.  Mill,  already  laid 
under  contribution,  we  may  here  transcribe  a  passage 
which  will  make  the  essential  point  in  this  discussion 
sufficiently  clear : 

"  The  view  for  which  I  contend  is,  that  morality 
properly  so  called — the  science  of  right  conduct — has 
for  its  object  to  determine  how  and  why  certain  modes 
of  conduct  are  detrimental,  and  certain  other  modes 
beneficial.  These  good  and  bad  results  cannot  be  acci- 


*  For  Mr.  Spencer's  earliest  discussion,  interesting  in  this  con- 
nection, of  the  utilitarian  system,  see  Social  Statics,  introduction. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM  OF  SPENCER.         177 

dental,  but  must  be  necessary  consequences  of  the  con- 
stitution of  things ;  and  I  conceive  it  to  be  the  business 
of  moral  science  to  deduce  from  the  laws  of  life  and  the 
conditions  of  existence  what  kinds  of  action  necessarily 
tend  to  produce  happiness  and  what  kinds  to  produce 
unhappiness.  Having  done  this,  its  deductions  are  to  be 
recognized  as  laws  of  conduct ;  and  are  to  be  conformed 
to,  irrespective  of  a  direct  estimation  of  happiness  or 
misery. 

Perhaps  an  analogy  will  most  clearly  show  my  mean- 
ing. During  its  early  stages,  planetary  astronomy  con- 
sisted of  nothing  more  than  accumulated  observations 
respecting  the  positions  and  motions  of  the  sun  and 
planets ;  from  which  accumulated  observations  it  came 
by  and  by  to  be  empirically  predicted,  with  an  approach 
to  truth,  that  certain  of  the  heavenly  bodies  would  have 
certain  positions  at  certain  times.  But  the  modern  sci- 
ence of  planetary  astronomy  consists  of  deductions  from 
the  law  of  gravitation — deductions  showing  why  the 
celestial  bodies  necessarily  occupy  certain  places  at  cer- 
tain times.  Now  the  kind  of  relation  which  thus  exists 
between  ancient  and  modern  astronomy  is  analogous  to 
the  kind  of  relation  which,  I  conceive,  exists  between 
the  expendiency-morality  and  moral  science  properly  so 
called.  And  the  objection  which  I  have  to  the  current 
utilitarianism  is,  that  it  recognizes  no  more  developed 
form  of  morality — does  not  see  that  it  has  reached  but 
the  initial  stage  of  moral  science." 

Keproducing  this  passage  in  the  Data  of  Ethics,  by 


178         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

way  of  general  summary  of  his  discussion  of  the  utili- 
tarian standpoint,  Mr.  Spencer  adds : 

"  Doubtless  if  utilitarians  are  asked  whether  it  can 
be  by  mere  chance  that  this  kind  of  action  works  evil 
and  that  works  good,  they  will  answer — No ;  they  will 
admit  that  such  sequences  are  parts  of  a  necessary  order 
among  phenomena.  But  though  this  truth  is  beyond 
question,  and  though,  if  there  are  causal  relations  be- 
tween acts  and  their  results,  rules  of  conduct  can  be- 
come scientific  only  when  they  are  deduced  from  these 
causal  relations,  there  continues  to  be  entire  satisfaction 
with  that  form  of  utilitarianism  in  which  these  causal 
relations  are  practically  ignored.  It  is  supposed  that  in 
future,  as  now,  utility  is  to  be  determined  only  by  ob- 
servation of  results,  and  that  there  is  no  possibility  of 
knowing  by  deduction  from  fundamental  principles 
what  conduct  must  be  detrimental  and  what  conduct 
must  be  beneficial."  * 

Such,  then,  is  the  foundation  of  Mr.  Spencer's  moral 
system,  to  the  working  out  of  which  through  the  various 
departments  of  personal  morals  and  social  relationships 
the  remainder  of  the  Principles  of  Ethics  is  devoted. 
It  remains  but  to  add  that  affiliation  of  the  principles 
here  laid  down  upon  the  general  doctrine  of  evolution 
leads  to  the  assertion  of  some  rather  striking  conclusions 
concerning  the  future  moral  progress  of  the  race.  We 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  §  21.  For  a  further  discussion  of  the  rela- 
tions between  expediency-morality  and  moral  science,  see  the 
essay  on  Prison  Ethics. 


THE  ETHICAL  SYSTEM   OF  SPENCER.          179 

have  seen  that  one  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
Synthetic  Philosophy  is,  that  all  things  are  gradually 
tending  towards  equilibrium  ;  and  as  this  must  hold 
true  in  the  super- organic  no  less  than  in  the  organic 
world,  it  results  that  the  gradual  adaptation  of  the  na- 
tures of  men  to  their  environment  cannot  cease  until 
between  natures  and  environment  there  is  a  perfect 
balance  or  equilibrium.  From  the  very  commencement 
of  social  life  down  to  the  present  time  such  tendency 
towards  adjustment  has  been  slowly  going  on,  and  it 
is  going  on  still,  moulding  the  characters  of  men  and 
women  everywhere  into  more  and  more  complete  har- 
mony with  the  sum-total  of  the  conditions  under  which 
they  live.  What  will  be  the  ultimate  consequence? 
"  The  adaptation  of  man's  nature,"  writes  Mr.  Spencer, 
"  to  the  conditions  of  his  existence  cannot  cease  until 
the  internal  forces  which  we  know  as  feelings  are  in 
equilibrium  with  the  external  forces  they  encounter. 
And  the  establishment  of  this  equilibrium  is  the  arrival 
at  a  state  of  human  nature  and  social  organization  such 
that  the  individual  has  no  desires  but  those  which  may 
be  satisfied  without  exceeding  his  proper  sphere  of  ac- 
tion, while  society  maintains  no  restraints  but  those 
which  the  individual  voluntarily  respects.  The  progress- 
ive extension  of  the  liberty  of  citizens,  and  the  recip- 
rocal removal  of  political  restrictions,  are  the  steps  by 
which  we  advance  towards  this  state.  And  the  ultimate 
abolition  of  all  limits  to  the  freedom  of  each,  save  those 
imposed  by  the  like  freedom  of  all,  must  result  from 


180         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

the  complete  equilibration  between  man's  desires  and 
the  conduct  necessitated  by  surrounding  conditions."  * 

The  ethical  corollary  of  all  this,  set  down  though  it 
is  in  terms  of  rigidly  scientific  reasoning,  is  more  opti- 
mistic than  the  brightest  dreams  of  revolutionist  or 
prophet  concerning  the  ideal  developments  of  our  race. 
For  this  equilibration  of  emotions  and  conditions  means 
that  at  length  the  adaptation  of  men's  natures  to  the 
demands  of  associated  life  will  become  so  complete  that 
all  sense  of  internal  as  well  as  of  external  restraint  and 
compulsion  will  entirely  disappear.  Eight  conduct  will 
become  instinctive  and  spontaneous ;  duty  will  always 
be  synonymous  with  pleasure ;  love  will  indeed  be  "  an 
unerring  light  "  and  "  joy  its  own  security,"  as  Words- 
worth sang ;  altruism  and  egoism  will  so  closely  merge 
that  altruism  will  be  simply  the  highest  egoism ;  and 
the  interests  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race  will  be  so 
completely  unified  that  the  prompting  and  impulses  of 
every  moment  will  minister  at  once  to  the  immediate 
and  ultimate  furtherance  of  the  one  and  the  widest  and 
fullest  realization  of  the  other,  f 

*  First  Principles,  §  175. 

f  In  regard  to  this  adjustment  of  the  moral  nature  to  the  con- 
ditions, see  especially  Social  Statics,  Part  I,  chap,  ii;  Data  of 
Ethics,  §§  46,  67,  96,  97;  Inductions  of  Ethics,  §§  124,  191,  192. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  SPENCERIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

I. 

IT  is  a  curious  instance  of  the  gratuitous-perverse- 
ness  of  popular  judgments,  that  because  Mr.  Spencer  has 
been  careful  to  mark  out  more  clearly  than  any  preced- 
ing philosopher  the  limits  within  which,  from  the  very 
constitution  of  our  intelligence,  all  our  knowledge  must 
be  confined,  his  system  should  therefore  have  been  pro- 
nounced a  system  of  negations.  Thousands  of  pulpits 
from  which  there  never  yet  issued  a  syllable  about  his 
positive  contributions  to  thought,  have  rung  with  de- 
nunciations of  his  agnosticism ;  thousands  of  general 
readers  who  know  nothing  of  the  light  that  he  has 
thrown  upon  so  many  of  the  practical  problems  and 
philosophic  controversies  of  the  day,  have  their  own 
pronounced  ideas  of  his  doctrine  of  the  unknowable — a 
doctrine  which  may  indeed  be  said  to  have  taken  the 
place  of  the  old  unscientific  materialism,  to  which  Mr. 
Spencer  has  himself  given  the  death-blow,  as  the  red 

rag  of  the  modern  theological  world.     How  strange  and 
13 


182         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

wayward  and  purblind  all  this  is,  it  is  hardly  needful  for 
us  here  to  point  out.  The  development  of  the  doctrine 
in  question  occupies  a  hundred  and  twenty-three  pages, 
or  less  than  a  quarter  of  one  volume  of  the  synthetic 
series — First  Principles ;  and  the  chapters  devoted  to  it 
represent  but  the  clearing  of  the  ground  for  constructive 
work,  and  properly  form  no  part  of  the  Synthetic  Sys- 
tem itself.  Hence,  even  if  we  persist  in  treating  the 
Absolute  as  a  negation — which  is  precisely  what,  as  we 
shall  see,  Mr.  Spencer  himself  emphatically  refuses  to 
do — it  is  none  the  less  manifest  that  to  stigmatize  the 
Synthetic  Philosophy  as  merely  iconoclastic,  is  funda- 
mentally to  misconceive  its  whole  character  and  ten- 
dency. 

Here  we  will  consider  the  Spencerian  doctrine  of  the 
unknowable  not  in  its  purely  metaphysical  but  in  its 
broadly  religious  aspects ;  and  we  will  approach  the 
whole  question  of  what  we  must  predict  as  the  probable 
future  of  religion  by  way  of  his  speculations  concerning 
religious  development  in  the  past. 

The  evolutionist,  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  remark, 
is  prevented  by  his  general  theory  of  things  from  re- 
garding from  the  popular  point  of  view  the  highly 
elaborated  theological  systems  of  the  world.  The  rela- 
tively pure  theism  of  modern  Christianity  cannot  be 
accepted  by  him  as  an  immediate,  divine  revelation,  nor 
can  he  consent  to  draw  a  hard-and-fast  line  between 
this  and  ..other  great  concrete  expressions  of  the  re- 
ligious emotion,  or  even  between  this  and  those  ex- 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        183 

tremely  low  expressions  of  it  which  the  culture-history 
of  the  human  race  has  brought  before  us  in  such  be- 
wildering variety.  All  such  manifestations,  whatever 
may  be  their  dissimilarities,  must  for  him  remain  mani- 
festations differing  in  degree,  not  in  kind,  from  one  an- 
other ;  and  like  all  other  phenomena,  they  have  to  be 
traced  back  into  their  simplest  forms  and  studied  in 
the  light  of  their  slow  and  gradual  evolution. 

The  first  question,  therefore,  to  be  raised  is  the  ques- 
tion of  the  feeling  that  lies  at  the  heart  of  them  all — 
the  religious  emotion.  As  we  cannot  consider  this,  any 
more  than  any  other  faculty  of  the  mind,  as  extra-ex- 
periential and  innate,  we  have  to  ask,  "Whence  came  it  ? 
What  theory  can  we  advance  of  its  genesis  and  devel- 
opment? 

It  must  at  the  outset  be  confessed  that  the  inquiry  to 
which  we  stand  committed  in  seeking  an  answer  to  these 
questions  is  one  beset  by  many  obstacles ;  not  because 
we  expect  to  find  the  natural  history  of  the  phenomena 
involved  generically  different  from  the  natural  history  of 
other  mental  phenomena,  but  because  it  is  here  especial- 
ly difficult  to  make  sure  that  we  understand,  even  ap- 
proximately, the  intellectual  condition  and  outlook  of 
primitive  man.  It  is  true  that  the  monstrous  and  im- 
possible barbarian  of  eighteenth-century  fancy  no  longer 
haunts,  Frankenstein-like,  the  deep  places  of  our  specu- 
lation ;  it  is  true  that  we  do  not  now  wilfully  read  back 
wholesale  into  the  savage  mind  the  ideas  and  emotions 
that  belong  to  our  more  developed  state;  yet,  at  the 


184         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

same  time,  it  is  still  hard  enough  to  purge  our  thought 
of  all  trace  of  our  advanced  interpretations  of  things,  and 
confront  the  universe  in  the  only  attitude  possible  to 
our  far-off  progenitors  in  the  long  ages  before  the  be- 
ginnings of  civilization.  TilLwe  can  do  this,  however — 
till  we  can  in  a  measure  leave  behind  us  qualities  and 
tendencies  that  have  become  organized  into  the  very 
woof  and  texture  of  our  nature — we  shall  continue  to 
commit  the  common  mistake  of  accepting  as  original 
factors  brought  to  light  by  our  investigations,  elements 
which  in  reality  we  ourselves  have  carried  into  our  in- 
vestigations with  us ;  and  this  must  inevitably  to  greater 
or  less  degree  vitiate  the  entire  course  of  our  thought. 
Declining,  then,  to  follow  the  still  fashionable  practice  of 
using  the  more  complex  mental  phenomena  to  interpret 
the  less  complex,  we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  deal 
with  the  whole  question,  not  by  analysis  from  above 
downward,  but  by  synthesis  from  below  upward.* 

Much  valuable  help  in  this  direction  has  during  the 
past  generation  been  given  by  the  careful  and  system- 
atic study  of  existing  savage  tribes.  Here,  it  is  true, 
the  difficulties  are  numerous  enough,f  for  the  igno- 

*  Principles  of  Sociology,  i,  §  316. 

f  All  these  are  admirably  exposed  and  commented  on  by  Sir 
John  Lubbock  in  his  Origin  of  Civilization,  chapter  i.  Later  in 
the  same  work,  dealing  specifically  with  the  religious  conceptions 
of  savages,  he  writes  :  "  Most  of  those  who  have  endeavoured  to  ac- 
count for  the  various  superstitions  of  savage  races,  have  done  so 
by  crediting  them  with  a  much  more  elaborate  system  of  ideas 
than  they  in  reality  possess.  Thus  Lafitau  supposes  that  fire  was 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        185 

ranee,  short-sightedness,  superficiality,  and  preconcep- 
tions of  travellers,  upon  whom  we  have  almost  wholly 
to  rely  for  our  data,  combine  to  render  their  testimony 
too  often  of  doubtful  worth,  and  the  subjective  element 
will  persistently  interpose  its  distorting  influence.  But 
the  learning  and  acumen  of  writers  like  Tylor  and  Lub- 
bock  have  gone  far  towards  clearing  away  the  dangers 
and  perplexities,  and  the  conclusions  established  by 
them  on  many  important  points  have  enabled  us  to 
enter  much  more  fully  than  was  formerly  possible  into 
the  recesses  of  the  savage  mind.  This  done,  it  remains 
for  us  to  hold  fast  to  the  fact  that  the  primeval  man, 
whose  mental  condition  and  modes  of  activity  we  are 
trying  to  realize,  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  on  an  in- 
tellectual equality  with  even  the  lowest  of  the  savage 
tribes  whose  life  is  now  partially  laid  open  for  our 
study.  We  may  use  these  as  convenient  steps  in  our 

worshipped  because  it  so  well  represents  '  cette  supreme  intelli- 
gence degagee  de  la  nature,  dont  la  puissance  est  toujours  active. 
Again,  with  reference  to  idols,  he  observes  that  '  la  dependance 
que  nous  avons  de  1'imagination  et  des  sens  ne  nous  permettant  pas 
de  voir  Dieu  autrement  qu'en  enigme,  comme  parle  Saint  Paul,  a 
cause  une  espece  de  necessite  de  nous  le  montrer  sous  des  images 
sensibles,  lesquelles  f  ussent  autant  de  symboles,  qui  nous  elevas- 
sent  jusqu'a  lui,  comme  le  portrait  nous  remet  dans  1'idee  de  celui 
dont  il  est  la  peinture.'  Plutarch,  again,  supposed  that  the  croco- 
dile was  worshipped  in  Egypt  because,  having  no  tongue,  it  was  a 
type  of  the  Deity,  who  made  laws  for  Nature  of  his  mere  will," 
(chapter  vi).  All  this  is  wild  enough  of  a  surety ;  but  is  it  much 
wilder  than  a  great  deal  contained  in  the  new  philosophy  of  early 
religions  offered  to  the  world  by  Prof.  Max  Miiller  and  his  fol- 
lowers among  the  comparative  mythologists  f 


186         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

perilous  descent,  but  we  have  to  get  down  far  below  the 
level  of  even  the  wretched  Bushmen,  Australian  abo- 
rigines and  Fuegians,  before  we  can  commence,  by  aid 
of  the  historic  imagination,  our  investigation  of  the 
facts  of  the  primitive  human  faculty.* 

In  the  experiences  of  creatures,  then,  who,  intellec- 
tually and  emotionally  considered,  differed  from  our- 
selves so  radically  and  entirely  at  almost  every  point  that 
it  is  only  with  the  utmost  difficulty  that  we  can  place 
ourselves  provisionally  upon  their  plane  and  in  their 
attitude  of  thought,  we  have  to  seek  for  the  earliest 
suggestions  of  the  religious  idea.  But  now,  first  of  all, 
how  for  our  purpose  shall  we  define  the  religious  idea  ? 
Some  working  definition,  if  only  of  the  broadest  and 
most  rudimentary  type,  is  necessary  to  begin  with,  and 
this  definition  must  pierce  far  enough  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  to  disentangle  the  idea  itself  from  all  its  historic 
accumulations  and  developments.  Writes  Mr.  Tylor: 
"  By  requiring  in  this  definition  the  belief  in  a  supreme 
Deity  and  of  judgment  after  death,  the  adoration  of 
idols  or  the  practice  of  sacrifice,  or  other  partially-dif- 
fused doctrines  or  rites,  no  doubt  many  tribes  may  be 
excluded  from  the  catalogue  of  religious.  But  such 
narrow  definition  has  the  fault  of  identifying  religion 


*  In  the  first  part  of  his  Principles  of  Sociology  Mr.  Spencer 
has  devoted  a  great  many  chapters  to  an  elaborate  detailed  study 
of  primitive  man  and  his  ideas.  The  works  of  Dr.  E.  B.  Tylor 
and  Sir  John  Lubbock  should  be  carefully  read  in  connection  with 
these. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OP  PHILOSOPHY.        187 

rather  with  particular  developments  than  with  the 
deeper  motive  which  underlies  them."  Wherefore,  he 
very  properly  concludes  that  "  it  seems  best  to  fall  back 
at  once  on  this  essential  source,  and  simply  to  claim,  as 
a  minimum  definition  of  religion,  the  belief  in  spiritual 
beings."  *  Merely  premising  that  such  words  as  spirit- 
ual and  supernatural,  when  employed  in  this  connection, 
must  be  held  free  from  all  their  usual  modern  conno- 
tations, this  definition  may  be  accepted  as  the  broad- 
est, and  therefore  the  most  satisfactory,  that  for  our 
purpose  we  are  likely  to  find.  Widely  as  the  countless 
concrete  theological  systems  of  the  world  may  differ  one 
from  another,  and  from  the  fantastic  and  incoherent 
superstitions  of  savage  tribes,  in  well-nigh  every  partic- 
ular, belief  in  the  reality  of  some  form  or  manifestation 
of  existence  other  than  that  which  we  describe  as  natu- 
ral will  be  found  invariably  to  distinguish  and  lie  at  the 
bottom  of  them  all.  It  is  this  belief,  and  no  other,  that 
furnishes  a  bond  of  union  between  bodies  of  thought 
otherwise  so  dissimilar,  for  example,  as  nineteenth-cen- 
tury Christianity  and  East  African  fetichism ;  and,  as 
being  the  one  single  quality  which  wholly  and  partially 
developed  theologies  without  exception  possess  in  com- 
mon, it  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  vital  germ  from 
which  what,  in  a  somewhat  more  advanced  sense,  is 
specifically  called  religion  has  everywhere  arisen. f 

*  Primitive  Culture,  fifth  American  edition,  i,  424. 
f  It  may  be  pointed  out  that  acceptance  of  this  definition 
changes  the  issue  in  the  old  discussion  as  to  the  universality  oi 


188         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Accepting  this  as  our  starting-point,  we  find  our- 
selves confronted  by  two  separate  questions.  In  the 
first  place,  whence  arose  the  belief  in  a  mode  of  exist- 
ence other  than  our  own?  And,  secondly,  given  this 
belief  in  its  crudest  form,  and  what  was  the  general 
course  of  its  early  development?  The  answers  given  by 
Mr.  Spencer  to  these  questions  will  be  found  in  his 
ghost-theory,  or  theory  of  the  double,  and  in  his  doc- 
trine of  ancestor- worship.  All  sense  of  the  supernatu- 
ral, according  to  his  view  of  the  matter,  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  primitive  belief  in  the  ghost;  and  all  re- 
ligious systems  whatsoever,  arising  at  the  outset  from 
such  belief,  have  passed  through  the  preparatory  stage 
of  ancestor-worship  on  their  way  to  their  more  complex 
and  highly  developed  forms. 


religion.  The  discussion  itself,  from  first  to  last,  has  been  mainly 
one  of  terminology,  the  various  disputants  not  being  in  agreement 
with  one  another,  and  sometimes  indeed  not  with  themselves,  in 
regard  to  what  they  meant  by  the  language  employed.  If  we  are 
to  use  the  word  religion  in  any  higher  sense  than  that  given  it  in 
the  text,  then  doubtless  Sir  John  Lubbock  is  right  in  concluding 
that  sundry  savage  tribes  have  been  and  are  without  religion 
(Origin  of  Civilization,  chap.  vi).  Yet  it  is  very  questionable 
whether  any  one  of  the  tribes  referred  to  by  him  in  confirmation 
of  his  statement  would  be  found  entirely  lacking  in  some  faint 
sense  of  a  life-power  other  than  their  own.  Both  Mr.  Spencer 
(Principles  of  Sociology,  vol.  i,  §  146)  and  Dr.  Tylor  (Primitive 
Culture,  i,  425)  favour  the  belief  that  at  all  events  no  tribe  that 
has  yet  been  fairly  studied  has  proved  to  be  absolutely  deficient 
in  some  trace  of  religious  ideas  as  thus  defined. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        189 


II. 

The  belief  formerly  almost  universally  in  vogue 
among  those  who  sought  a  natural  genesis  for  religious 
ideas  was  that  early  man  was  led  by  a  sense  of  wonder 
and  awe  to  reverence  for,  and  direct  personification  of, 
the  natural  objects  influencing  his  daily  life.  Sun, 
moon,  earth,  winds,  sea,  so  mysterious  in  their  behaviour, 
so  tremendous  in  their  manifestations,  were  thus  sup- 
posed to  be  the  objects  which,  by  heightening  of  the 
feelings  of  astonishment  and  dread,  gradually  gave  rise 
to  the  sentiment  that  we  call  worship.  But  poetical  as 
is  the  theory,*  and  congruous  as  its  alleged  experiences 
unquestionably  are  with  the  mental  processes  of  our 
more  developed  state,  the  briefest  consideration  of  the 
actual  facts  of  the  savage  mind  suffices  to  show  its  entire 
untenability.  The  primitive  man  had  neither  the  emo- 
tional tendencies  nor  the  intellectual  tendencies  requisite 
to  produce  the  supposed  chain  of  effects.  The  familiar 
sights  and  sounds  of  surrounding  Nature,  suggestive  as 
they  may  be  to  the  civilized  adult,  aroused  in  him  no 
greater  feeling  of  awe  than  they  do  to-day  in  the  child 
or  the  village  clown,  who  watches  the  rising  and  setting 


*  It  is  surprising  how  often  even  thoughtful  men  and  women 
will  be  found  embracing  hypotheses  merely  because  they  appeal 
to  their  sense  of  general  fitness  or  beauty.  Rigid  analysis  of  our 
current  beliefs  would  probably  disclose  the  fact  that,  partially  in- 
tellectualized  though  they  may  be,  the  emotions  lie  at  the  root  of 
a  very  considerable  proportion  of  them. 


190         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

of  the  sun,  the  waxing  and  waning  of  the  moon,  the 
ebbing  and  flowing  of  the  sea,  without  the  slightest 
impulse  in  the  direction  of  worship.  Any  religious 
promptings  of  which  we  may  ourselves  be  conscious  as 
we  stand  face  to  face  with  such  phenomena  are  not 
primitive,  but  distinctively  modern,*  and,  so  far  from 
helping,  stand  as  obstacles  in  the  way  of  our  under- 
standing of  the  emotional  attitude  of  early  men.  So, 
too,  with  the  intellectual  side  of  the  question.  The 
savage  accepts  the  natural  changes  that  go  on  around 
him — day  and  night,  summer  and  winter,  tidal  ebb  and 
flow — with  complete  mental  indifference,  and  as  matters 
of  course.  He,  like  the  ignorant  and  brutal  among  our- 
selves, has  no  curiosity.  He  does  not  speculate  con- 
cerning them,  he  asks  no  questions  about  their  mean- 
ing, seeks  for  no  interpretation.  He  lacks,  therefore, 
the  very  traits  from  which  any  possible  system  of  Na- 
ture-worship would  have  to  originate. 

What,  then,  must  we  conclude  ?  That  Nature- wor- 
ship is  not  the  primordial  form  of  the  religious  idea,  but 
a  developed  form  of  it.  And  now  we  have  to  ask — if 
our  study  of  primitive  characteristics,  emotional  and 
intellectual,  forbids  our  accepting  this  commonly  al- 
leged explanation  as  the  true  explanation  of  the  phe- 
nomenon under  discussion — What  theory  will  that  study 
enable  us  to  offer  to  take  its  place  ? 


*  Any  sense  of  a  spiritual  relation  with  Nature  is,  as  the  study 
of  literature  shows  us,  of  very  recent  development. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        191 

"  The  mind  of  the  savage,"  says  Mr.  Spencer,  "  like 
the  mind  of  the  civilized,  proceeds  by  classing  objects 
and  relations  with  their  likes  in  past  experience."* 
But  while  their  minds  work  in  the  same  way,  the  ex- 
periences which  furnish  the  materials  for  their  opera- 
tions are  entirely  different — being  in  the  latter  case  al- 
most infinitely  varied,  and  in  the  former  extremely  lim- 
ited and  circumscribed.  While,  therefore,  the  civilized 
adult  is  able  to  classify  both  objects  and  actions  accord- 
ing to  their  essential  likenesses,  these  being  often  among 
the  least  obvious  of  their  characteristics,  conspicuous 
likenesses,  which  frequently  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  essential  nature,  alone  attract  the  savage  attention. 
A  single  illustration  will  serve  to  make  this  abstract 
statement  clear.  According  to  testimony  cited  by  Mr. 
Spencer,  an  Esquimaux  has  been  known  to  mistake  a 
piece  of  glass  for  a  lump  of  ice.  This  error  arose,  not 
because  the  mind  of  the  Esquimaux  did  not  proceed  in 
the  same  way  as  the  mind  of  an  educated  European — 
namely,  by  classing  the  new  object  with  what  most  re- 
sembled it  in  past  experience — but  because,  owing  to 
his  small  and  superficial  acquaintance  with  things,  this 
rough  grouping,  in  virtue  of  the  most  manifest  external 
similarities,  was  the  only  grouping  possible  to  him. 

Passing  over  the  discussion  of  the  general  theory  of 
the  outer  world  to  which  these  limitations  must  neces- 
sarily give  rise,  we  will  concern  ourselves  with  their  in- 

*  Principles  of  Sociology,  i,  §  52. 


192         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

fluence  only  in  the  production  of  the  earliest  religious 
ideas.  Consider,  then,  the  interpretation  that  must  be 
forced  upon  the  mind  of  primitive  man  by  the  familiar 
personal  phenomena  of  shadows,  reflections,  dreams. 
The  notion  inevitably  generated  by  them  must  be  the 
notion  of  the  duality  of  things.  Watching  his  shadow, 
the  savage  becomes  convinced  that  he  is  attended  by  a 

o  */ 

double,  sometimes  present,  sometimes  withdrawn.  Ob- 
servation of  his  reflection  in  the  water  strengthens  this 
belief ;  and  in  both  cases  he  finds  evidence  of  the  dupli- 
cation not  only  of  his  own  existence,  but  of  almost  all 
other  existence  as  well.  Knowing  nothing  of  the  phys- 
ical causes  of  these  results,  he  simply  and  naturally 
regards  them  as  appended  entities — which,  however, 
possess  the  differential  characteristic  that  they  are 
visible  without  being  tangible.*  Hence  the  initial 
peculiarities  of  the  double,  or  shadow,  world.  With 
these  crude  ideas  combine  ideas  arising  from  the  experi- 
ences of  sleep.  In  dreams,  the  savage  finds  himself  en- 
gaged in  activities  similar  to  those  of  waking  life.  He 
hunts,  fishes,  and  feasts,  fights  enemies,  and  goes  through 
dangers ;  and  these  visionary  occurrences  are  to  him 
just  as  real  as  the  every-day  occurrences  which  they 
faintly  or  vividly  resemble.  What  is  the  inevitable  re- 


*  Charaisso's  well-known  story  of  Peter  Schlemihl — the  man 
who  sold  his  shadow — and  Lamotte-Pouque's  Saint  Sylvester's 
Night  Phantasy,  in  which  a  person  loses  his  reflection,  are  playful 
reminiscences  of  this  primitive  belief  in  the  actual  reality  of 
shadows  and  reflections. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        193 

suit'?  While  all  these  dream-adventures  have  been 
taking  place,  his  actual  body,  as  he  by-and-by  learns 
from  others,  has  been  lying  motionless  and  unresponsive. 
From  this  grows  up  the  notion  of  the  wandering  double, 
or  other-self,  that  goes  away  for  a  short  time  in  dreams, 
and  for  longer  periods  in  fevers,  swoonings,  and  trances ; 
and  the  identification  of  this  other-self  with  the  ap- 
pended entity,  shown  in  shadow  and  reflection,  is  almost 
certain  to  follow.  In  this  way  develops  in  complete 
form  the  belief  in  the  double  or  ghost — a  belief  which 
the  testimony  of  travellers  and  missionaries,  so  far  as  it 
has  hitherto  been  carefully  sifted  and  examined,  reveals 
as  existing  even  in  savage  tribes  among  whom  the 
faintest  trace  or  suggestion  of  any  higher  religious  con- 
ception has  been  looked  for  in  vain. 

This  belief  naturally  assumes  special  proportions  in 
connection  with  the  phenomenon  of  death.  Tempora- 
rily withdrawn  in  sleep,  fever,  swoon,  and  trance,  the 
double,  or  other-self,  is  held  at  dissolution  to  take  a 
final  departure.  Yet,  though  now  permanently  de- 
tached from  the  tangible  bodily  self,  to  which  no  effort 
can  recall  it,  it  has  not  therefore  passed  into  a  state  of 
absolute  non-existence.  It  has  vanished  into  the  shadow- 
world,  carrying  with  it  most  of  its  earthly  characteris- 
tics, but  becoming  gradually  endowed  none  the  less  with 
growing  suggestions  of  superadded  power.  By-and-by 
the  surrounding  world  is  filled  with  these  shadowy 
doubles — the  belief  in  ghosts  thus  generated  surviving 
down  to  our  own  time  in  the  vulgar  dread  of  dema- 


194        PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

terialized  existences  that  are  supposed  to  haunt  "  the 
glimpses  of  the  moon,  making  night  hideous." 

Observe  the  natural  result.  A  savage  dreams  of  his 
dead  father,  brother,  son.  How  does  he  interpret  such 
an  experience?  As  the  actual  visitation  of  the  double 
or  ghost  of  his  departed  relative.  No  other  interpreta- 
tion is,  indeed,  possible.  Out  of  this  springs  the  first 
idea  of  an  after-life.  But  this  after-life,  as  Sir  John 
Lubbock  has  pointed  out,  is  at  the  outset  limited  and 
temporary;  savages  are  likely  to  dream,  for  the  most 
part,  only  of  the  recently  dead ;  and  when  a  deceased 
friend  is  no  longer  dreamed  about,  he  is  no  longer 
thought  of  as  still  existing.*  Only  later,  along  with 
the  development  of  larger  religious  ideas,  does  this  con- 
ception of  the  temporary  after-life  expand  into  the 
conception  of  an  unending  after-life,  or  what  we  call 
immortality. 

But  meanwhile,  belief  in  the  surviving  double  or 
ghost  exercises  remarkable  influence  over  the  whole  of 


*  "  Ask  the  negro,"  says  M.  Du  Chaillu,  "  where  is  the  spirit  of 
his  great-grandfather?  He  says  he  does  not  know;  it  is  done. 
Ask  him  about  the  spirit  of  his  father  or  brother  who  died  yester- 
day, then  he  is  full  of  fear  and  terror ;  he  believes  it  to  be  gen- 
erally near  the  place  where  the  body  has  been  buried,  and  among 
many  tribes  the  village  is  removed  immediately  after  the  death  of 
one  of  the  inhabitants.  The  same  belief  prevails  among  the 
Amazulu  Kaffirs,  as  has  been  well  shown  by  Mr.  Callaway.  They 
believe  that  the  spirits  of  their  deceased  fathers  and  brothers  still 
live,  because  they  appear  in  dreams;  by  inverse  reasoning,  how- 
ever, grandfathers  are  generally  regarded  as  having  ceased  to  ex- 
ist"—Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilization,  pp.  238,  239. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        195 

savage  life.  It  originates,  in  the  first  place,  the  practice 
of  ministering  to  the  needs  and  desires  of  the  spirit. 
The  universal  rite  of  leaving  provisions  with  the  corpse 
finds  its  explanation  here ;  sometimes,  where  the  double 
is  thought  of  as  material,  it  is  supposed  to  make  use  of 
such  provisions  in  their  material  form ;  sometimes  the 
more  refined  conception  is,  that  the  ghost  makes  use 
only  of  the  spirit  of  the  things  offered.  Reason  is  thus 
also  assigned  for  those  continued  periodic  oblations  to  the 
dead  of  which  travellers  in  different  parts  of  the  world 
have  spoken,  and  which  frequently  persist,  in  more  or  less 
mutilated  shapes,  in  the  higher  stages  of  advancing  civ- 
ilization. But  this  is  by  no  means  all.  In  these  primi- 
tive observances  we  may  recognize  the  germ  of  all  re- 
ligious ceremonial.  The  father  of  the  family,  the  leader 
of  the  tribe,  the  chief  of  the  clan,  men  of  exceptional 
prowess  and  power  during  life,  become  after  death  the 
objects  of  special  attention.  Their  utterances  in  dreams 
are  accepted  as  commands  of  unusual  importance ;  their 
known  wishes  become  the  foundations  of  law ;  every- 
thing is  done  to  retain  their  favour  and  to  keep  them 
friendly.  Hence  arises  ancestor-worship  as  a  necessary 
stage  in  religious  evolution.  Little  by  little,  along  with 
social  consolidation,  goes  consolidation  of  these  incipi- 
ent religious  ideas.  The  tribe  is  dominated  by  some 
one  man  of  extraordinary  strength  and  character ;  suc- 
cess in  war  attends  his  guidance,  success  within  the  clan 
follows  his  counsel.  Dying,  he  assumes  a  correspond- 
ingly important  position  in  the  ghost-world — his  spirit 


196    PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

becomes  the  tribal  god.  His  grave,  and  the  rough 
structure  raised  around  it  for  protection,  initiate  the 
temple ;  ministrations  at  his  resting-place,  and  propitia- 
tory offerings  upon  the  ever-sacred  spot,  give  rise  to 
religious  sacrifice ;  appeals  to  him  for  continued  help  are 
the  first  prayers;  and  in  the  praises  of  his  great  deeds, 
his  courage,  and  his  triumphs,  recited  or  chanted  within 
hearing  of  and  to  gratify  his  ghost,  we  may  find  the 
first  indications  of  subsequent  temple  ritual. 

To  show  how  from  these  germs,  pari  passu  with  the 
expansion  of  thought  and  the  general  evolution  of  the 
social  structure,  there  gradually  grew  up  systems  of 
fetichism,  idolatry,  Nature-worship,  and  other  primitive 
bodies  of  theological  thought  with  their  accompanying 
cults ;  and  still  more  to  trace  from  these  the  slow  forma- 
tion in  their  first  crude  embodiments  of  the  great  con- 
crete religions  of  the  world,  would  here  take  us  beyond 
our  limits.  All  this  Mr.  Spencer  has  done  in  detail, 
and  with  wonderful  wealth  of  illustration.  The  follow- 
ing points  are  those  which  we  have  here  to  bear  in 
mind  :  First,  that  our  present  method  of  interpretation 
seeks  the  origin  of  all  religious  ideas,  not  according  to 
the  common  mythological  theory,  in  feelings  and  specu- 
lations about  the  powers  of  Nature  which  are  obviously 
beyond  the  range  of  undeveloped  thought,  but  in  the 
savage's  inevitable  experiences  of  the  duality  of  his  own 
and  other  existence,  and  that,  consequently,  all  so-called 
primitive  religious  ideas  are  really  not  original,  but  de- 
rived. Secondly,  that  the  immediate  and  necessary  out- 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        197 

growth  of  these  experiences  was  the  rise  of  a  univer- 
sal system  of  ancestor- worship,  which  in  time  originated 
a  more  or  less  complex  pantheon  of  deities — ancestors 
expanding  into  gods,  and  mighty  rulers  and  leaders  into 
gods-in-chief.  Thirdly,  that  all  forms  of  theism,  even 
monotheism  itself,  are  reached  by  generalization  from 
earlier  ideas,  and  are  only  possible  when  the  mind  has 
reached  a  certain  degree  of  development ;  and,  finally, 
that  the  course  of  evolution  here  indicated  is  to  be  held 
as  marking  out  the  line  pursued  by  every  religious  sys- 
tem in  its  earliest  stages — in  other  words,  that  we  see 
no  reason  to  regard  any  religion  whatever  as  an  excep- 
tion to  this  general  rule,  because  in  its  highly  elaborated 
form  it  appears,  superficially  considered,  to  present  no 
distinct  reminiscences  of  these  primitive  stages  of  its 
history. 

III. 

Acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  in  its  appli- 
cation to  thought  obliges  us  to  acknowledge  that  in  the 
development  of  religious,  as  of  all  other  ideas,  there 
must  at  every  stage  be  a  certain  congruity  between  the 
beliefs  held  and  the  intellectual  and  moral  character  of 
those  holding  them.  If  it  be  true,  as  has  been  perti- 
nently said,  that  "  an  honest  God's  the  noblest  work  of 
man,"  it  is  no  less  true  that  this  noblest  work  is  only 
possible  to  noble  natures  in  a  comparatively  advanced 
state  of  civilization.  An  indigenous  creed  will  always 

evolve  in  conformity  with  the  average  needs  of  a  nation 
14 


198         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

or  tribe  at  any  given  time,  and  the  changes  it  gradually 
undergoes — allowance  being  made  for  the  subtle  influ- 
ence of  interaction  between  belief  and  character — will 
be  in  keeping  with  the  changing  needs ;  while  where  a 
creed  is  imported  ready-made  from  without,  it  will  in- 
evitably, in  so  far  as  it  enters  into  the  spiritual  life 
at  all,  find  the  level  of  general  character  and  ideals — 
a  truth  never  more  strikingly  illustrated  than  in  the 
history  of  proselytizing  Christianity.  And  this  forces 
us  to  recognition  of  the  fact,  not  altogether  easy  of 
acceptance  throughout  the  whole  range  of  its  implica- 
tions, that  "the  religious  creeds  through  which  man- 
kind successively  pass  are,  during  the  eras  in  which 
they  are  severally  held,  the  best  that  could  be  held ; 
and  that  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  latest  and  most 
refined  creeds,  but  of  all,  even  to  the  earliest  and  most 
gross."  * 

This  principle  becomes  clearer  when  we  remember 
that  early  creeds  are  everywhere  fashioned  upon  the 
then  existing  social  state ;  and  since  the  social  state  is  at 
every  stage  of  its  evolution  the  outgrowth  of  average 
needs,  the  creed  itself  is  but  the  idealization  and  em- 
bodiment of  those  needs,  and  throws  the  weight  of  its 
influence  where  for  the  time  being  it  is  most  required. 
A  religious  conception  greatly  beyond  the  medium  social 
demand  would  also  be  beyond  the  reach  of  the  medium 
intelligence ;  though  possible  to  one  or  two  in  a  gen- 

*  The  Use  of  Anthropomorphism. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        199 

eration,  it  would  be  impossible  to  the  large  majority. 
Hence,  the  ideas  formed  of  divine  affairs  and  divine  gov- 
ernment are  at  all  times  reflections  of  earthly  affairs  and 
earthly  government :  the  divine  ideal,  in  other  words,  is 
simply  the  projection  of  the  particular  social  ideal  then 
in  vogue.  Man  has  all  along  made  God  in  his  own 
image ;  and  more  civilized  periods,  inheriting  the  con- 
ceptions handed  down  to  them  from  periods  less  civil- 
ized, find  themselves  entrusted  with  the  task  of  modify- 
ing these  older  conceptions  to  bring  them  into  general 
harmony  with  broader  and  purer  ideals.  "  Ascribed 
characters  of  deities,"  as  Mr.  Spencer  says,  "are  con- 
tinually adapted  and  readapted  to  the  needs  of  the 
social  state.  During  the  militant  phase  of  activity  the 
chief  god  is  conceived  as  holding  insubordination  the 
greatest  crime  [as  it  is  then  legally  considered  the  great- 
est offence],  as  implacable  in  anger,  as  merciless  in  pun- 
ishment; and  any  alleged  attributes  of  milder  kinds 
occupy  but  small  space  in  the  social  consciousness.  But 
where  militancy  declines,  and  the  harsh,  despotic  form 
of  government  appropriate  to  it  is  gradually  qualified  by 
the  form  appropriate  to  industrialism,  the  foreground  of 
the  religious  consciousness  is  increasingly  filled  with 
those  ascribed  traits  of  the  divine  nature  which  are 
congruous  with  the  ethics  of  peace  :  divine  love,  divine 
forgiveness,  divine  mercy,  are  now  the  characteristics 
enlarged  upon."  * 

*  Ecclesiastical  Institutions  (Principles  of  Sociology,  Part  VI), 
§657. 


200         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

That  all  early  religious  conceptions  are  absolutely 
anthropomorphic,  both  in  their  positive  aspects  and  in 
their  limitations,  is  now  admitted  by  all  serious  students 
of  culture  history ;  and  we  may  here  notice,  in  passing, 
the  striking  harmony  of  this  fact  with  the  general 
theory  of  ancestor-worship  above  outlined.  Man  was 
not  only  the  primitive  type  of  deity,  as  Dr.  Tylor  has 
said  ;  he  was  the  primitive  deity ;  hence  necessarily  the 
purely  manlike  characteristics  of  all  early  gods.  At 
first  scarcely  more  intelligent,  far-seeing,  courageous,  or 
potent  than  the  living  savage  who  ministered  to  his 
necessities,  the  surviving  double  or  ghost  only  gradually 
acquired  transcendent  capacities  and  powers ;  and  it  is  a 
familiar  fact  that  even  the  Jahveh  of  comparatively 
speaking  so  advanced  a  people  as  the  early  Hebrews,  was 
for  a  protracted  period  still  markedly  deficient  not  only 
in  the  higher  virtues,  but  also  in  the  higher  intellectual 
qualities.  Monotheism,  or  the  conception  of  a  single, 
all-powerful,  ever-present  deity,  therefore  comes  at  the 
far  end  of  the  evolution  of  religious  ideas ;  which  means, 
of  course,  that  many  popular  theological  theories,  based 
upon  the  assumption  of  man's  innate  sense  of  the  divine, 
require  fundamental  modification.  But  what  we  are 
most  concerned  to  point  out  here  is,  that,  as  Mr.  Spencer 
has  shown  in  the  little  essay  on  The  Use  of  Anthropo- 
morphism, from  which  we  have  already  quoted,  an- 
thropomorphism, even  in  its  crudest  and  grossest  forms, 
has  had  its  relative  justification,  since  it  has  played  an 
important  part  in  the  higher  development  of  the  race. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF   PHILOSOPHY.        201 

The  savage  nature,  needing  strong  checks,  can  most 
effectually  be  controlled  by  fear  of  the  still  more  savage 
deity.  The  conception  must  be  entirely  concrete  to 
enter  as  a  moral  motive  into  his  action ;  and  thus  even 
the  most  repulsively  diabolical  characteristics  aid  in  the 
production  and  preservation  of  restraints,  which,  not 
otherwise  obtainable,  help,  like  the  iron  hand  and  will 
of  the  earthly  despot,  to  prepare  the  way  for  milder  dis- 
cipline. Something  may  in  this  way,  therefore,  be  said 
even  for  the  God  of  mediaeval  theology,  and  much  for 
many  of  the  crudest  and  most  repulsive  elements  in  the 
popular  religious  teachings  of  our  own  day.  They  yield 
important  regulative  factors  in  the  lives  of  those  for 
whom  restraints  and  sanctions  derived  from  more  ab- 
stract doctrine  would  have  no  authority ;  and  they  could 
not  be  universally  swept  away,  even  if  that  were  possible, 
without  the  most  disastrous  results.  The  only  danger  is 
that,  through  the  influence  of  natural  religious  conserv- 
atism and  intellectual  vested  interests,  the  old  concep- 
tions may  only  too  often  be  found  to  survive  the  period 
of  their  beneficial  activity.  Then  they  become  not  aids, 
but  hindrances,  to  further  progress — obstacles  in  the 
way  of  that  adjustment  to  which  all  evolution  tends.* 

*  Recognition  of  the  average  congruity  between  men's  beliefs 
and  their  needs  must  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  all  lower  re- 
ligious ideas  are  extremely  tenacious  of  life,  and  tend  to  persist, 
with  untold  consequences  for  evil,  in  face  of  advancing  civilization. 
The  task  of  eliminating  the  worst  features  in  the  body  of  theo- 
logical doctrine  remaining  over  from  the  past,  is  in  some  respects 
the  most  important  that  each  generation  has  to  undertake ;  and 


202         PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


IV. 

The  principle  that  for  all  religious  conceptions  an- 
thropomorphism is  the  necessary  point  of  departure, 
interesting  as  it  is  for  students  of  culture-history,  is  not 
here  referred  to  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  its  important 
implications  in  relation  to  the  higher  progress  of  the- 
ology. For  the  fact  now  to  be  recognized  is,  that  even 
the  most  advanced  theological  systems  of  the  world 
have  not  yet  outgrown  this  earliest  universal  stage. 

how  difficult  it  generally  proves  is  shown  by  the  ever-renewed 
struggle  between  so-called  heterodox  and  so-called  orthodox,  trials 
for  heresy,  and  other  similar  phenomena.  It  seems  to  me  that  Mr. 
Spencer  himself  is  sometimes  inclined  to  overlook  or  underrate 
this  dynamic  aspect  of  the  matter.  Meanwhile  there  is  another 
thought  that  may  be  pertinently  suggested.  We  speak  too  often 
of  civilization  as  if  it  were  a  tide  rising  with  something  like  uni- 
formity all  along  the  shore.  We  forget  that  in  every  country,  at 
every  period,  stages  of  civilization  overlap — that  there  are  still  to 
be  found  among  ourselves  left-over  specimens  and  representatives 
of  each  epoch  in  the  world's  history,  from  the  age  of  barbarism 
down  to  our  own  time.  Appreciation  of  this  fact  should  prevent 
a  confusion  of  issues  which,  sometimes  overtly,  sometimes  in  par- 
tially disguised  form,  will  be  found  to  vitiate  most  discussions  on 
present-day  religious  affairs.  It  is  too  often  assumed  to  be  an  ob- 
jection against  a  high  religious  creed  that  it  is  not  applicable  to 
every  class  of  the  community,  and  particularly  that  it  does  not  go 
straight  home  with  regenerating  force  to  the  lowest  and  most 
degraded  characters.  Hence,  comparisons  are  instituted  in  all 
solemnity  between  the  refined  faiths  of  cultivated  thinkers  and 
the  gross  doctrines  of  the  Salvation  Army,  and  invariably  in  favour 
of  the  latter,  because  it  has  succeeded  in  reaching  those  whom  the 
more  refined  faiths  in  question  have  never  been  able  to  touch ! 
All  that  needs  to  be  said  in  answer  to  this  extraordinary  argument 
is,  that  the  semi-savage,  even  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  civiliza- 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        203 

Modern  Christian  theism  itself,  even  in  its  purest  forms, 
is  still  anthropomorphic  theism — is  still  substantially  an 
attempt  to  construct  a  philosophy  of  deity  on  the  basis 
of  human  qualities  and  human  powers. 

The  history  of  the  slow  and  painful  advance  of  the- 
ology from  lower  to  higher  forms  has  been  the  history 
of  gradual  de-anthropomorphization.*  One  by  one  the 
distinctively  manlike  characteristics  have  been  dropped 
from  the  conception  of  God,  and  those  remaining  have 
been  expanded  to  more  than  manlike  proportions. 
These  changes,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  have  corre- 
sponded with  the  progress  of  men  towards  higher  social 
and  individual  ideals,  and  thus  we  find,  as  we  should 
expect,  that  the  passions  and  proclivities  first  winnowed 
out  and  repudiated  are  those  which  belong  to  the 
stages  of  barbarism  now  left  behind.  The  savage  trait 
of  cannibalism  does  not,  in  the  conception  of  the  god, 
long  survive  the  habit  of  cannibalism  in  any  tribe,  and 

tion,  must  have  his  semi-savage  religion  ;  but  that  we  object  to  re- 
gard the  repulsive  doctrines  that  naturally  prove  the  most  operative 
in  his  case  as  therefore  possessing  the  more  essential  religious 
vitality.  The  counterpart  to  the  common  error  now  referred  to— 
an  error  repeated  in  many  circles  with  offensive  implications — is 
the  scarcely  less  widely-spread  tendency  of  well-meaning  and  cul- 
tivated men  and  women  to  believe  in  the  amelioration  of  the  low- 
est classes  through  the  influence  of  high  religious  ideas  that 
properly  belong  only  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  level  of  far 
more  developed  natures.  We  can  never  reiterate  too  strongly  that, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  no  creed  can  resemble  a  patent  medicine 
and  suit  all  cases. 

*  For  this  useful  if  somewhat  formidable-looking  word  we  are 
indebted  to  Mr.  John  Fiske. 


204         PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

deception,  fraud,  and  cruelty  do  not  continue  to  be 
predicated  of  deity  when  truthfulness  and  mercy  come 
to  be  recognized  as  qualities  appertaining  to  higher 
manhood.  At  the  same  time,  the  limitations  of  human 
faculty  are  broken  down  in  the  image  formed  of  the 
Divine  Being.  God  is  thought  of  no  longer  only  as 
very  powerful,  very  far-seeing,  very  good,  but  as  power- 
ful, far-seeing,  good,  in  degrees  altogether  transcending 
human  possibility — and  finally  as  infinitely  so.  And 
now  observe  that,  as  each  new  step  in  advance  is  taken, 
as  one  by  one  the  imperfect  moral  qualities  are  allowed 
to  lapse,  and  the  conception  is  ennobled  and  expanded 
on  every  side,  every  generation  looks  down  upon  those 
who  continue  to  cling  to  the  outgrown  ideas  with  feel- 
ings of  astonishment  and  disgust.  The  Christian  theist 
is  horrified  at  the  suggestion  of  the  cannibal  deity  of 
the  Fijians ;  the  modern  defender  of  orthodoxy  finds 
much  that  is  repulsive  with  little  that  is  admirable  in 
the  despotic  and  tyrannical  God  of  mediaeval  theology ; 
yet,  throughout,  the  conception  is  that  of  idealized  hu- 
manity. Even  in  the  very  loftiest  theological  teachings 
this  still  holds  true.  The  moral  qualities  are  infinitely 
purified — the  intellectual  qualities  infinitely  developed  ; 
but  the  difference  is  one  of  degree  only,  and  not  of 
kind.  The  qualities  are  human  qualities  still. 

But  must  we  rest  here  ?  Is  anthropomorphic  the- 
ism, even  in  its  ultimate  form,  the  final  outcome  of  the 
religious  idea?  Is  man,  too  long  accepted  by  himself  as 
,  the  measure  of  all  things,  to  set  himself 


RELIGIOUS   ASPECTS  OF   PHILOSOPHY.        205 

up  permanently  as  the  type  of  Deity?  Or  may  we  not 
rather  suppose,  looking  back  over  the  course  of  reli- 
gious evolution  in  the  past,  and  humbly  acknowledging 
the  possibility  of  continued  evolution  in  the  future, 
that  mankind  may  still  reach  conceptions  of  the  Abso- 
lute Eeality  as  much  higher  and  truer  and  nobler  than 
the  now  current  conceptions  of  deity  as  these  in  their 
turn  are  higher  and  truer  and  nobler  than  the  supersti- 
tions of  the  savage  ? — that  the  purgation  of  the  merely 
human  characteristics  may  still  continue,  till  at  length 
all  thought  of  the  manlike  shall  be  entirely  banished 
from  our  idea  of  God  ? — that,  in  other  words,  anthro- 
pomorphic theism,  when  brought  to  its  highest  de- 
gree of  purification,  may  yet  lead  the  way  to  re- 
ligious ideas  compared  with  which  all  thoughts  of 
Deity  that  men  have  hitherto  had  will  seem  crude  and 
gross  ?  * 

We  shall  best  approach  these  questions  from  the 
negative  side — by  considering  first  of  all  the  impossi- 
bility of  continuing  to  think  of  the  noumenal  exist- 
ence in  any  terms  of  human  existence,  no  matter  how 
high  and  pure  these  may  be. 

Theologians,  metaphysicians,  and  all  those  who  have 

*  Xo  student  of  early  religious  thought  can  afford  to  overlook 
Browning's  wonderfully  subtle  analysis  of  anthropomorphism  in 
his  Caliban  upon  Setebos.  Perhaps  the  only  needful  commentary 
upon  this  extraordinary  production  is  the  motto  which  the  poet 
himself  chose  for  it  from  the  Psalms,  and  which  sufficiently  indi- 
cates his  point  of  view :  "  Thou  thoughtest  that  I  was  altogether 
such  a  one  as  thvself." 


206         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

in  any  way  concerned  themselves  with  the  ultimate 
problem,  of  the  universe,  have  agreed  to  define  the 
First  Cause  of  all  things  as  both  infinite  and  absolute. 
To  this  indeed  they  are  driven,  to  avoid  becoming  en- 
tangled in  meshes  of  difficulty  and  self-contradiction 
from  which  there  is  no  escape.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  escape  Scylla  only  to  fall  into  Charybdis.  Verbally 
intelligible  though  their  proposition  may  appear,  it  be- 
comes totally  unintelligible  the  moment  we  press  close 
upon  the  meanings  of  the  words  employed,  and  en- 
deavour to  frame  conceptions  answering  to  the  phrase- 
ology. For,  in  the  first  place,  how  can  we  think  of  an 
absolute  cause  ?  Absolute  is  that  which  exists  out  of 
all  relation ;  while  a  cause  can  only  be  conceived  as 
such  in  relation  to  its  effect.  Cancel  the  thought  of 
effect,  and  you  cancel  the  thought  of  cause.  To  speak 
of  absolute  cause,  therefore,  is  to  attempt  to  unite  the 
ideas  of  non-relative  and  relative — which  is  manifestly 
an  impossibility.  "  We  attempt,"  writes  Dean  Mansel, 
whose  arguments  on  this  question  were  freely  drawn 
upon  by  Mr.  Spencer,  and  are  here  reproduced  from 
the  pages  of  First  Principles,  "  to  escape  from  this  ap- 
parent contradiction  by  introducing  the  idea  of  succes- 
sion in  time.  The  Absolute  exists  of  itself,  and  after- 
wards becomes  a  Cause.  But  here  we  are  checked  by 
the  third  conception,  that  of  the  Infinite.  How  can 
the  Infinite  become  that  which  it  was  not  from  the 
first?  If  causation  is  a  possible  mode  of  existence, 
that  which  exists  without  causing  is  not  infinite ;  that 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        207 

which  becomes  a  cause  has  passed  beyond  its  former 
limits."  * 

To  pursue  this  subject  further  would  be  to  commit 
ourselves  to  an  unwarranted  digression  into  the  domain 
of  metaphysics.  Observing  simply  that,  as  here  shown, 
while  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  the  First  Cause  as 
finite  and  relative,  it  is  equally  impossible  to  frame  any 
conception  of  it  as  infinite  and  absolute,  we  will  pass 
on  to  notice  that,  even  waiving  these  insuperable  diffi- 
culties, others  not  less  formidable  stare  us  in  the  face. 
A  large  part  of  dogmatic  theology  is  taken  up  with  the 
discussion  of  the  "  attributes  "  of  God.  Yet  it  is  easy  to 
show  not  only  that  the  various  attributes  so  confidently 
ascribed  to  Deity  are  mutually  destructive,  and  there- 
fore cannot  possibly  be  thought  of  together,  but  also 
that  the  conception  of  none  of  them  can  be  made  to 
combine  with  the  conceptions  of  infinite  and  absolute, 
which  for  the  sake  of  the  argument  we  will  consent  for 
the  moment  to  accept. 

The  question  of  the  relation  of  God's  "  moral  char- 
acter "  to  his  knowledge  and  his  power  introduces  us  to 
a  familiar  dilemma  of  old  standing.  We  can  think  of 
a  man  as  being  at  once  very  good  and  very  wise  and 
very  powerful ;  but  when  we  attempt  to  carry  these 
qualities  to  an  infinite  degree,  and  at  the  same  time 
bear  in  mind  the  actual  history  and  condition  of  the 


*  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  quoted  in  First   Principles, 
§13. 


208         PHILOSOPHY  OP   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

world,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  the  problem  that 
has  already  shaken  so  many  noble  minds.  To  put  the 
difficulty  in  the  well-known  way.  Evil  and  suffering 
exist;  they  belong,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  to  the  very 
texture  of  universal  life ;  all  our  progress  has  hitherto 
depended  upon  them.  Now,  God  must  have  foreseen 
this  before  the  creation  of  the  world,  or  he  cannot  be 
omniscient.  But  if  he  foresaw  it,  he  must  have  been 
able  or  not  able  to  prevent  it.  In  the  former  case, 
though  all-powerful,  he  cannot  be  all-good ;  in  the  lat- 
ter, though  all-good,  he  cannot  be  all-powerful.  To 
think  of  God,  then,  as  at  once  all-wise,  all-powerful, 
and  all-good  is  clearly  an  impossibility.  Here  is  the 
ancient  stumbling-block  —  the  ever- recurring  problem 
which  no  amount  of  inquiry  into  the  "  purposes  of  the 
Creator "  has  ever  yet  enabled  or  ever  will  enable  the- 
ology to  meet  with  a  satisfactory  solution.  To  reconcile 
the  sin  and  misery  of  the  world  with  the  infinite  power, 
goodness,  and  wisdom  of  a  personal  Deity,  remains  to- 
day, as  it  has  been  from  the  first  age  of  monotheism, 
one  of  the  great  unread  and  unreadable  enigmas  of 
human  speculation.  Here  we  hand  it  back  to  the 
theologians,  who  have  made  it  their  own  by  pre-emp- 
tion, and  who  are  indeed  responsible  for  its  existence. 
Non  nostrum  tantas  componere  lites. 

For  the  whole  difficulty,  let  it  be  understood,  is  not, 
as  is  too  often  assumed,  a  difficulty  created  by  the  blas- 
phemous cavilling  of  those  who  refuse  to  accept,  in  lieu 
of  explanation,  the  verbal  jugglery  of  ecclesiastical  spe- 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        209 

cial  pleading.  It  inheres  in  the  very  nature  of  anthro- 
pomorphic theism ;  and  if  blasphemy  there  be  in  the 
matter,  the  charge  lies,  as  Mr.  Fiske  has  properly  pointed 
out,  at  the  door  of  those  who  seek  to  maintain  the 
anthropomorphic  hypothesis.  Hence  the  gain  achieved 
by  showing  that  this  hypothesis  is  untenable.  To  do 
this  we  have  to  prove  that,  as  above  stated,  beyond  the 
fact  that  we  cannot  combine  the  ideas  of  infinite  good- 
ness, power,  and  wisdom  in  our  conception  of  Deity,  lies 
the  further  (less  obvious  but  more  significant)  fact,  that 
no  "  attribute  "  whatsoever  can  possibly  be  thought  of 
in  connection  with  Absolute  and  Infinite  Existence. 

To  define  God  is  to  deny  him,  said  Spinoza;  and 
the  veriest  tyro  in  logic  knows  that  definition  involves 
circumscription.  Yet  upon  definition  have  theologians 
from  time  immemorial  expended  their  subtlest  powers, 
with  the  result  that  they  have  succeeded  in  producing, 
in  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  famous  phrase,  nothing  but  a 
non-natural,  magnified  man.  For  their  definitions  are 
verbal  only — they  elude  us  the  instant  we  endeavour  to 
turn  them  into  thought.  We  are  told,  for  instance, 
that  God  is  an  infinite  personality.  But  if  we  cannot 
think  of  an  infinite  cause,  still  more  clear  is  it  that  we 
cannot  think  of  an  infinite  personality.  Personality 
implies  limitation,  or  it  means  nothing  at  all.  To  talk 
of  an  Infinite  Person,  therefore,  is  to  talk  of  something 
that  is  at  once  infinite  and  finite,  unconditioned  and 
conditioned,  unlimited  and  limited — an  impossibility. 
So  is  it  with  every  quality  related  to  personality.  The- 


210         PHILOSOPHY  OF   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

ology  argues  about  the  will  and  the  purpose  of  God. 
Mathematics,  as  Spinoza  long  ago  intimated,  might  as 
well  discuss  the  circularity  of  a  triangle.  Will  and  pur- 
pose are  attributes  of  the  limited  and  conditioned ;  they 
imply  an  end  external  to  the  agent,  and  a  desire  on  his 
part  to  accomplish  it.  Attempt  to  attach  these  ideas  to 
the  idea  of  the  Absolute  and  Infinite,  and  you  will  find 
yourself  plunged  into  a  sea  of  absurdity.  How  can 
there  be  an  end  external  to  the  Absolute  ?  and  how  can 
the  Infinite  pass  through  states  of  consciousness,  con- 
stituting the  act  of  volition  ?  Even  intelligence  or  con- 
sciousness itself  is  only  conceivable  as  a  relation,  and 
therefore  the  Absolute  cannot  be  thought  of  as  con- 
scious. Intelligence  demands  "  a  conscious  subject  and 
an  object  of  which  he  is  conscious.  The  subject  is  a 
subject  to  the  object;  the  object  is  an  object  to  the 
subject ;  and  neither  can  exist  by  itself  as  the  absolute. 
This  difficulty  .  .  .  may  be  for  the  moment  evaded  by 
distinguishing  between  the  absolute  as  related  to  an- 
other, and  the  absolute  as  related  to  itself.  The  abso- 
lute, it  may  be  said,  may  possibly  be  conscious,  provided 
it  is  only  conscious  of  itself.  But  this  alternative  is,  in 
ultimate  analysis,  no  less  self-destructive  than  the  other. 
For  the  object  of  consciousness,  whether  a  mode  of  the 
subject's  existence  or  not,  is  either  created  in  and  by  the 
act  of  consciousness,  or  has  an  existence  independent  of 
it.  In  the  former  case  the  object  depends  upon  the 
subject,  and  the  subject  alone  is  the  true  absolute.  In 
the  latter  case  the  subject  depends  upon  the  object,  and 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        211 

the  object  alone  is  the  true  absolute.  Or,  if  we  attempt 
a  third  hypothesis,  and  maintain  that  each  exists  inde- 
pendently of  the  other,  we  have  no  absolute  at  all,  but 
only  a  pair  of  relatives;  for  coexistence,  whether  in 
consciousness  or  not,  is  itself  a  relation."  *  Or,  to  put 
the  matter  in  language  elsewhere  employed  by  Mr. 
Spencer  himself,  "  intelligence,  as  alone  conceivable  by 
us,  presupposes  existence  independent  of  it  and  objec- 
tive to  it.  ...  To  speak  of  an  intelligence  which  exists 
in  the  absence  of  such  alien  activities,  is  to  use  a  mean- 
ingless word."  Hence,  the  intelligence  ascribed  to  the 
Absolute  Being  "  answers  in  no  respect  to  that  which 
we  know  by  the  name.  It  is  intelligence  out  of  which 
all  the  characters  constituting  it  have  vanished."  f 

The  fundamental  assumptions  of  rational  theology 
are  thus,  as  Dean  Mansel  concludes,  self-destructive. 
Turn  where  we  will,  choose  our  vocabulary  as  we  may, 
we  must  inevitably  commit  ourselves  to  endless  con- 
fusion, so  long  as  we  rest  in  even  the  highest  and  purest 
forms  of  anthropomorphic  theism — so  long,  that  is,  as 
we  persist  in  thinking  of  the  ultimate  reality  that  re- 
ligion calls  God,  as  a  ywasi-human  entity,  and  deceive 
ourselves  into  believing  that  we  are  gaining  anything 
like  a  truer  and  deeper  understanding  of  his  nature  by 
applying  to  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  Existence  qualities 
and  attributes  that  can  have  no  possible  meaning  when 


*  Mansel,  quoted  in  First  Principles,  §  13. 
t  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  §  658. 


212         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

taken  out  of  connection  with  the  finite  and  conditioned. 
Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  further  progress  of  thought 
"  must  force  men  hereafter  to  drop  the  higher  anthropo- 
morphic characters  given  to  the  First  Cause,  as  they  have 
long  since  dropped  the  lower."  * 

It  is  only  necessary  to  add  to  this  part  of  the  argu- 
ment that  the  impossibility,  thus  made  apparent,  of  de- 
fining the  ultimate  reality  in  terms  of  human  activities, 
means  of  course  the  impossibility  of  defining  the  ulti- 
mate reality  in  any  terms  at  all.  Humanity  furnishes  us 
with  our  highest  conception  of  life.  That  the  infinite 
universe  contains  forms  of  existence  transcending  ours 
in  inconceivable  ways  and  in  almost  infinite  degrees,  is, 
beyond  question,  a  rational  supposition ;  but  any  at- 
tempt to  image  such  superior  forms  must  still  be  circum- 
scribed by  what  we  know  of  intelligence  in  the  highest 
manifestations  in  which  it  has  yet  been  revealed  to  us. 
We  cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  get  rid  of  our  own 
limitations ;  wander  where  it  will,  our  imagination  must 
still  be  tethered  fast  to  our  own  conditions.  If,  then, 
passing  from  the  thought  of  transcendently  superior 
phenomenal  existences,  which  as  phenomenal  must  have 
a  certain  kinship  with  ourselves,  to  the  thought  of  the 
noumenal  existence,  which  as  noumenal  can  possess 
none  of  the  characteristics  of  the  phenomenal,  we  find 
inevitably  that  our  human  nature  furnishes  us  with  no 
kind  of  standard,  criterion,  or  point  of  departure ;  we 

*  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  §  658. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        213 

are  bound  to  realize  that  no  standard,  criterion,  or 
point  of  departure  is  possible  to  us.  If  the  highest 
that  we  know  leaves  us  without  help  in  our  effort  to 
conceive  that  which  an  infinitely  superior  phenomenal 
intelligence  would  still  be  as  far  from  apprehending  as 
ourselves,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  enterprise  itself  has  to 
be  relinquished.  And  thus,  by  noting  the  failure  which 
must  of  necessity  follow  every  attempt  to  frame  a  con- 
ception of  the  ultimate  reality,  we  are  led  round  to  the 
great  truth  made  clear  the  moment  we  recognize  the 
relativity  of  all  our  thinking — the  truth,  namely,  that 
all  conception  of  Absolute  Being  is  forever  beyond  our 
grasp. 

V. 

Here,  then,  we  have  established  certain  negative  con- 
clusions. We  have  seen,  in  the  first  place,  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  we  cannot  regard  man 
as  possessing  an  innate,  transcendental  sense  of  Deity, 
and  that  we  must  therefore  seek  a  natural  genesis  for 
religious  as  for  all  other  ideas.  One  current  hypothesis 
is  thus  overthrown.  In  the  second  place,  we  have  found 
that  the  progress  of  religious  thought  has  largely  con- 
sisted in  the  gradual  elimination  of  anthropomorphic 
elements  from  the  idea  of  Deity,  and  that  this  elimina- 
tion must  go  on,  until  all  human  or  quasi-human  at- 
tributes are  entirely  expunged.  Accepted  theological 
teachings  in  regard  to  the  personality  and  character  of 

God  are  thus  shown  to  belong  to  a  lower  stage  of  re- 
15 


214         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

ligious  thought — a  stage  already  partially,  and  presently 
to  be  entirely,  outgrown. 

Fortunately,  we  do  not  have  to  rest  in  these  em- 
phatic repudiations  of  so  much  that  seems  most  sacred 
in  popular  thought.  There  is  a  positive  as  well  as  a 
negative  aspect  to  our  whole  argument — a  constructive 
as  well  as  destructive  side.  To  this  we  will  now  turn. 

That  larger  charity  which  is  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing endowments  of  evolutionary  habits  of  inquiry,  has 
taught  us  to  recognize  "  the  soul  of  goodness  in  things 
evil,"  and  the  soul  of  truth  in  things  erroneous.  We  no 
longer  discard  as  absolutely  and  entirely  without  founda- 
tion even  the  strangest  and  most  grotesque  ideas  that 
have  ever  gained  foothold  in  the  thoughts  of  our  race. 
Absurd  as  they  may  seem  to  the  superficial  or  careless 
observer,  the  mere  fact  that  they  have  existed  and  have 
held  their  own,  may  be  taken  to  prove  that  they  origi- 
nally "  germinated  out  of  actual  experiences — originally 
contained,  and  perhaps  still  contain,  some  small  amount 
of  verity."  * 

If  this  is  true  in  regard  to  belief  in  general,  espe- 
cially must  it  be  held  to  be  true  in  regard  to  such  beliefs 
as  have  given  evidence  of  unusual  and  persistent  vitality. 
It  was  a  cheerful  doctrine  of  the  old  theology  that  if  a 
thing  were  pleasant  it  was,  therefore,  certain  to  be 
wrong;  whence,  by  analogy,  it  might  be  concluded 
that,  from  the  same  point  of  view,  the  more  wide- 

*  First  Principles,  §  1. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        215 

spread  an  idea,  the  less  chance  there  would  be  of  its  em- 
bodying any  nucleus  of  reality.  But,  from  the  position 
here  adopted,  this  atrabilious  view  of  human  life  and 
destiny  is  shown  to  lack  foundation.  For,  when  any 
belief  has  become  deeply  embedded  in  human  nature, 
when  it  resists  modifications  of  fashion  and  thought, 
and  holds  its  ground  in  perennial  strength  amid  all  the 
intellectual  and  moral  upheavals  of  the  ages,  we  see 
reason  to  infer  that  it  does  so  because,  whatever  may  be 
its  encumbrances  and  adulterations  of  error,  it  contains 
some  core  of  vital  truth.  JS"ow,  suppose  that,  recogniz- 
ing this  trait  of  universality  and  persistency  in  a  given 
belief  as  primd  facie  evidence  of  its  possessing  a  strong 
basis  of  verity,  we  notice  that  it  is  not  only  very  general 
and  very  stable,  but  also  that  it  is  a  constituent  ele- 
ment common  to  many  otherwise  conflicting  systems  of 
thought — what  is  the  inference  that  we  are  compelled 
to  draw  ?  The  inference,  surely,  that,  generated  among 
different  men  under  almost  infinitely  varied  conditions, 
caught  up  and  preserved  in  creeds  and  philosophies 
having  scarcely  another  point  of  similarity,  and  endur- 
ing amid  the  sweeping  changes  and  far-reaching  de- 
velopments of  thought,  this  belief  must  hold  some  ker- 
nel of  truth  of  supreme  importance — must  shoot  out 
some  tendrils  running  far  down  into  the  deepest  subsoil 
of  human  life  and  experience. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  we  may  recur  to  a  point  al- 
ready dealt  with.  In  seeking  for  the  broadest  possible 
definition  of  the  religious  idea,  we  concluded  that  in  the 


216         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

last  analysis  that  idea  would  everywhere  be  found  to  de- 
pend upon  the  sense  of  an  existence  other  than  the  ex- 
istence which  we  describe  as  natural.  Belief  in  a  mode 
of  life  and  power  which  is  not  the  mode  in  which  life 
and  power  are  manifested  in  ourselves,  is  therefore  the 
central  belief  around  which  all  concrete  forms  of  religion 
have  gradually  accumulated ;  it  is  the  belief  that  all  such 
concrete  forms,  whatever  may  be  the  diverse  courses  of 
their  evolutions,  continue  to  hold  in  common ;  it  is  the 
residual  element  left  when  all  their  differences  are  can- 
celled and  all  their  antagonistic  factors  thrown  aside. 
Almost  if  not  quite  universal,  and  obstinately  persist- 
ent, it  is  therefore  the  belief  that,  however  much  it  may 
be  distorted  or  disguised,  must  be  taken  as  embodying 
the  largest  and  most  important  truth.  Now,  all  reli- 
gious systems  have  built  upon  the  foundation  furnished 
by  this  belief  a  theory  of  explanation — a  philosophy — of 
the  universe;  recognizing  one  and  all,  from  lowest  to 
highest,  that  a  mystery  lies  at  the  heart  of  things — a 
mystery  from  the  overwhelming  sense  of  which  there  is 
no  possibility  of  escape.  And  what,  in  regard  to  this 
universal  recognition  of  the  problem  of  the  universe,  has 
been  the  course  of  the  evolution  of  religious  thought  ? 
Every  stage  in  advance  has  only  served  to  bring  the 
sense  of  mystery  into  more  conspicuous  relief.  Earlier 
interpretations,  shown  by  wider  knowledge  and  larger 
outlook  to  be  insufficient,  are  discarded  or  modified  ;  hy- 
potheses framed  by  one  generation  are  seen  by  the  next 
generation  to  be  untenable ;  until  at  length  the  inevita- 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OP  PHILOSOPHY.        217 

ble  goal  of  the  whole  movement  comes  within  sight,  and 
the  most  thoughtful  inquirers  begin  to  realize  that  the 
mystery  of  which  all  the  creeds  have  sought  an  explana- 
tion is  a  mystery  for  which  no  explanation  can  ever  pos- 
sibly be  found.  Thus,  however  much  religious  systems 
may  differ  from  one  another  in  their  suggested  solutions 
of  the  problem  of  life,  and  from  that  most  developed 
philosophy  which,  conscious  that  every  hypothesis  that 
ever  has  been  or  ever  can  be  framed  concerning  it,  is  un- 
tenable, declares  the  problem  itself  to  be  insoluble,  they 
are  at  one  upon  the  supreme  point,  that  the  mystery  is 
there.  This  is  a  truth  "respecting  which  there  is  a 
latent  agreement  among  all  mankind,  from  the  fetich- 
worshipper  to  the  most  stoical  critic  of  human  creeds."* 
In  endeavouring  to  discover  the  natural  history  of  the 
religious  idea,  we  throw  no  discredit,  then,  upon  the  re- 
ligious idea  itself.  On  the  contrary,  we  put  forward  a 
loftier  theory  of  it  than  has  ever  yet  been  promulgated 
by  those  who  have  adopted  the  ordinary  supernatural 
basis  of  interpretation.  For  we  find  the  vital  germ  of 
truth  in  all  its  diverse  manifestations;  and,  impatient 
with  no  so-called  superstition,  we  lay  bare  those  deep 
foundations  upon  which  all  the  religions  ultimately  rest. 
Here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  moral  sense,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  what  advantage  the  advocates  of  supernatural  origin 
can  possibly  claim  over  those  against  whose  theories  of  a 
natural  origin  they  so  fiercely  protest. 

*  First  Principles,  §  14. 


218         PHILOSOPHY  OP   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Thus  we  have  two  permanent  elements  in  religious 
thought :  the  belief  in  a  mode  of  life  and  power  other 
than  our  own,  and  a  sense  of  the  ultimate  mystery  of  the 
universe ;  the  former  of  them  being  used  as  a  key  to  the 
latter.  We  have  seen  that  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
religious  development  is  to  make  this  mystery  more 
apparent.  Let  us  now  inquire  into  the  evolution  of  the 
other  element — that  idea  of  an  existence  not  our  own, 
upon  which  all  religious  interpretations  of  the  origin 
and  meaning  of  the  universe  have  been  based. 

The  following  extract  from  Mr.  Spencer's  Ecclesias- 
tical Institutions  (§  659)  will  here  serve  our  purpose 
much  better  than  any  words  of  our  own : 

"Every  voluntary  act  yields  to  the  primitive  man  proof 
of  a  source  of  energy  within  him.  Not  that  he  thinks 
about  his  internal  experiences ;  but  in  these  experiences 
this  notion  lies  latent.  When  producing  motion  in  his 
limbs,  and  through  them  motion  in  other  things,  he  is 
aware  of  the  accompanying  feeling  of  effort.  And  this 
sense  of  effort,  which  is  the  perceived  antecedent  of 
changes  produced  by  him,  becomes  the  conceived  ante- 
cedent of  changes  not  produced  by  him — furnishes  him 
with  a  term  of  thought  by  which  to  represent  the  gene- 
sis of  these  objective  changes.  At  first  this  idea  of  mus- 
cular forces  as  anteceding  unusual  events  around  him, 
carries  with  it  the  whole  assemblage  of  associated  ideas. 
He  thinks  of  the  implied  efforts  as  efforts  exercised  by 
beings  like  himself.  In  course  of  time  these  doubles  of 
the  dead,  supposed  to  be  workers  of  all  but  the  most 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        219 

familiar  changes,  are  modified  in  conception.  Besides 
becoming  less  grossly  material,  some  of  them  are  devel- 
oped into  larger  personalities  presiding  over  classes  of 
phenomena  which,  being  comparatively  regular  in  their 
order,  suggest  a  belief  in  beings  who,  while  far  more 
powerful  than  men,  are  less  variable  in  their  modes  of 
action ;  so  that  the  idea  of  force  as  exercised  by  such 
beings  comes  to  be  less  associated  with  the  idea  of  a 
human  ghost.  Further  advances,  by  which  minor 
supernatural  agents  are  merged  in  one  general  agent, 
and  by  which  the  personality  of  this  general  agent  is 
rendered  vague  while  becoming  widely  extended,  tend 
still  further  to  dissociate  the  notion  of  objective  force 
from  the  force  known  as  such  in  consciousness ;  and  the 
dissociation  reaches  its  extreme  in  the  thoughts  of  the 
man  of  science,  who  interprets  in  terms  of  force  not  only 
the  visible  changes  of  sensible  bodies,  but  all  physical 
changes  whatever,  even  up  to  the  undulations  of  the 
ethereal  medium.  Nevertheless,  this  force  (be  it  force 
under  that  statical  form  by  which  matter  resists,  or 
under  that  dynamical  form  distinguished  as  energy)  is 
to  the  last  thought  of  in  terms  of  that  internal  energy 
which  he  is  conscious  of  as  muscular  effort.  He  is  com- 
pelled to  symbolize  objective  force  in  terms  of  subjective 
force  from  lack  of  any  other  symbol. 

"  See,  now,  the  implications.  That  internal  energy 
in  which  the  experiences  of  the  primitive  man  was  al- 
ways the  immediate  antecedent  of  changes  wrought  by 
him;  that  energy  which,  when  interpreting  external 


220         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

changes,  he  thought  of  along  with  those  attributes  of  a 
human  personality  connected  with  it  in  himself — is  the 
same  energy  which,  freed  from  anthropomorphic  accom- 
paniments, is  now  figured  as  the  cause  of  all  external  phe- 
nomena. The  last  stage  reached  is  recognition  of  the 
truth  that  force  as  it  exists  beyond  consciousness  cannot 
be  like  what  we  know  as  force  within  consciousness ; 
and  that  yet,  as  either  is  capable  of  generating  the 
other,  they  must  be  different  modes  of  the  same.  Con- 
sequently, the  final  outcome  of  that  speculation  com- 
menced by  the  primitive  man  is  that  the  Power  mani- 
fested throughout  the  universe  distinguished  as  ma- 
terial, is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up 
under  the  form  of  consciousness." 

Little  comment  upon  this  passage  is  called  for.  The 
sense  of  a  mode  of  life  and  power  other  than  our  own, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  has  from  the  first  been  taken 
as  the  clue  to  the  arcanum  of  creation,  necessarily 
arises  under  an  anthropomorphic  form,  and  under  this 
form  continues  to  persist  through  all  the  less  developed 
stages  of  thought.  Meanwhile,  the  tendency  to  de-an- 
thropomorphization  little  by  little  modifies  all  the  earlier 
religious  conceptions  by  depriving  them  one  by  one  of 
their  human  and  quasi-human  characteristics,  beginning 
with  the  lower,  but  gradually  passing  onward  to  the 
higher ;  until  finally,  through  continuance  of  the  same 
tendency,  all  such  characteristics  will  disappear.  When 
this  has  at  length  taken  place,  there  will  be  nothing  left 
in  the  thought  but  the  permanent  and  inexpugnable 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF    PHILOSOPHY.        221 

sense  of  the  power  of  which  all  the  phenomenal  universe 
is  but  the  transient  expression — the  reality  that  underlies 
it  all.  Thus  the  conception  of  the  life  not  ourselves — 
the  life  by  which  all  existence  is  sustained — just  as  it 
has  been  enlarging  from  the  very  beginning  "  must  go 
on  enlarging,  until,  by  disappearance  of  its  limits,  it 
becomes  a  consciousness  which  transcends  the  forms 
of  distinct  thought,  though  it  forever  remains  a  con- 
sciousness." * 

All  this  is  surely  a  sufficient  answer  to  those  who 
maintain  that  Mr.  Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  Absolute  is 
merely  a  negation.  On  the  contrary,  for  him  it  is  the 
highest  possible  affirmation.  Unknowable  in  itself,  the 
noumenon — the  reality  behind  phenomena — is  still  the 
foundation  of  all  our  knowledge.  Whatever  else  may 
be  doubted,  this  at  least  can  never  be  called  in  question. 
It  is  the  one  inexpugnable  element  in  consciousness, 
left  over  in  the  last  analysis  as  the  ultimate,  inexplica- 
ble, indestructible  first  principle  of  thought.  Obliterate 
it,  and  the  whole  fabric  of  our  knowledge  would  crum- 
ble to  nothing.f 

VI. 

To  recapitulate.  Stating  the  matter  broadly,  and  in 
the  first  place  regarding  only  its  negative  aspects,  we 
have  seen  that  the  Spencerian  doctrine  cuts  the  ground 
directly  from  beneath  all  forms  of  anthropomorphic 

*  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  §  658. 
f  First  Principles,  §  26. 


222        PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

theism.  There  are  high  and  low  forms  of  such  theism, 
varying  all  along  the  line  from  that  of  the  Fijian,  who 
pictures  his  gods  as  cannibals  as  brutal  and  bloody  as 
himself,  to  that  of  so  refined  and  subtle  a  thinker  as 
Dr.  Martiueau,  who  talks  of  the  "  character  of  God," 
and  "the  order  of  affections  in  him";  but  be  their 
differences  otherwise  what  they  may,  they  correspond  in 
their  ascription  to  the  Absolute  and  Infinite  Power  of 
traits  and  characteristics  having  purely  relative  and 
finite  connotations.  Any  real  grappling  with  the  ques- 
tion at  issue,  any  firm  determination  not  to  rest  content 
with  merely  verbal  explanations,  or  admit  the  validity 
of  specious  phrases  that  cannot  be  translated  into  ideas 
and  grasped  as  such,  must  inevitably  force  us  to  an  ad- 
mission of  the  impossibility,  we  will  not  say  of  defin- 
ing, but  of  conceiving,  the  nature  of  the  eternal  and 
ever- working  power  which  lies  behind  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  sensible  universe.  All  our  knowledge  is  limited 
to  phenomena ;  and  when,  from  dealing  with  phenom- 
ena, we  pass  on  to  think  or  speak  of  that  which  is  not 
phenomenon  but  reality,  we  are  bound  to  think  and 
speak  in  terms  which  necessarily  lose  all  their  meaning 
in  the  transfer.  Will,  intention,  foresight,  personality, 
purpose — we  know  what  these  mean  when  applied  to 
creatures  conditioned  like  ourselves ;  applied  to  the  Un- 
conditioned, they  are  empty  words,  having  no  meaning 
at  all,  or  meanings  which  imply  countless  absurdities 
and  contradictions.  "  To  think  that  God  is,  as  we  can 
think  him  to  be,  is  blasphemy  " — such  is  the  conclusion 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OP  PHILOSOPHY.         223 

to  which  we  are  ultimately  brought.  However  vast, 
however  deep,  our  knowledge  of  the  phenomenal  uni- 
verse may  hereafter  become,  it  is  that  phenomenal  uni- 
verse which  must  forever  offer  an  adamantine  barrier  to 
our  thought.  Science  may  press  forward  in  every  di- 
rection, and  open  up  vistas  of  which  at  present  we  do 
not  even  dream  ;  but  her  ever-widening  circle  will  only 
bring  us  into  larger  touch  with  the  nescience  that  lies 
beyond.  The  dividing  line  between  appearance  and 
reality  can  never  be  passed,  no  matter  what  achieve- 
ments of  insight  and  genius  and  knowledge  the  future 
ages  may  hold  in  store ;  and  for  all  mankind,  as  for  us, 
the  Keality  will  remain  the  great  unsolved  Enigma — 
the  Unknown,  the  Unknowable. 

But  happily  our  philosophy  brings  a  message  of 
promise  as  well  as  a  message  of  discouragement.  In  his 
well-known  controversy  with  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison, 
some  years  ago,  Mr.  Spencer  very  properly  called  his 
brilliant  but  volatile  antagonist  to  task  for  loudly  ap- 
plauding the  irreparable  defeat  which  theology  had 
sustained  at  his  (Spencer's)  hands,  while  refusing  to 
acknowledge  the  services  he  had  rendered  to  religion  by 
showing  the  essential  form  of  truth  which,  amid  mani- 
fold errors  and  divagations,  every  theology  contains. 
The  whole  of  this  discussion  only  served  to  emphasize 
in  many  minds  the  feeling  that  it  is  not  a  little  unfor- 
tunate that  Mr.  Spencer  should  have  made  such  promi- 
nent use  of  the  word  unknowable,  not  because  his  mean- 
ing is  not  perfectly  plain  to  the  careful  student  of  Part 


224         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

I  of  First  Principles,  but  because  he  has  thus  left  a 
loophole  for  what  has  been  well  described  as  some  of 
the  dreariest  twaddle  which  has  been  given  to  the  world 
under  the  name  of  philosophical  discussion  since  the 
days  of  mediaeval  scholasticism.  For  the  word  unknow- 
able has  allowed  the  adverse  critic  to  assume,  and  to 
build  a  whole  superstructure  of  argument  upon  the  as- 
sumption, that  Mr.  Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  Absolute 
is  a  vacuum — a  mere  negation  of  thought.  So  far  from 
this  being  the  case,  we  have  shown  that,  for  the  Spen- 
cerian,  the  truth  that  behind  all  we  know  and  can 
know,  eluding  thought  and  transcending  imagination, 
there  is  the  one  Eternal  Reality,  is  the  corner-stone  of  all 
our  knowledge — the  one  fact  that  can  never  be  either 
analyzed  or  got  rid  of.  And  here  we  may  notice  how 
in  this  final  datum  of  consciousness  religion  and  science 
find  their  complete  and  permanent  reconciliation.  For 
the  supreme  and  everlasting  power  which  religion  calls 
God,  is  the  eternal  and  inscrutable  energy  which  science 
finds  at  the  back  of  its  widest  generalizations  and  be- 
neath its  deepest  investigations.  All  science  leads  at 
last  to  the  mystery  with  which  all  religion  begins. 

It  is  true  that  all  this  means  the  inevitable  sacrifice 
of  many  of  the  ideas  now  most  deeply  embedded  in  the 
current  creeds.  It  is  true  that  it  forces  us  to  look  for  a 
more  and  more  complete  purgation  from  the  conception 
of  Deity  of  all  human  attributes;  since  to  speak  of 
the  Divine  will,  or  a  personal  creator,  or  an  intelligent 
Governor  of  the  universe,  is  seen,  when  viewed  from  the 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        225 

standpoint  of  philosophical  exactness,  to  be  scarcely 
more  admissible  than  to  go  back  at  once  to  the  quaintly 
manlike  images  of  the  early  Hebrew  Scriptures.  It  is 
true  that  it  forces  us  to  realize  with  ever-increasing 
vividness  how  little  all  our  feeble  guessiugs  must  be 
worth  in  face  of  the  great  Enigma,  since  we  are  prob- 
ably incalculably  further  from  the  truth  when  we  speak 
of  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  in  terms  of  human  emotion 
and  human  intelligence  than  we  should  be  if  we  attempt- 
ed to  describe  human  emotion  and  human  intelligence 
in  terms  of  a  plant's  functions ;  for  we  have  always  to 
remember,  with  the  humility  which  science  inculcates, 
but  to  which  theology  has  been  too  often  a  stranger, 
that  the  choice  is  not  between  personality  and  some- 
thing lower,  but  between  personality  and  something 
infinitely  and  therefore  inconceivably  higher.  But  all 
this  notwithstanding,  and  though  we  are  forced  to 
admit  the  futility  of  all  the  efforts  of  all  the  theologies 
to  formulate  that  which  is  forever  beyond  formulation, 
we  are  not  therefore  to  suppose  that  we  are  left  without 
touch  upon  the  Unseen  and  Eternal,  or  that  there  is  no 
kinship  and  no  communion  between  our  spirits  and  the 
Source  and  Sustainer  of  all  things.  Given  the  ultimate 
Reality — the  great  central  fact  of  consciousness — and  we 
are  forced  to  conceive  of  that  Reality,  not,  indeed,  as  per- 
sonal and  conscious,  but  as  the  power  which  is  mani- 
fested in  personality  and  consciousness  in  ourselves; 
personality  and  consciousness  being  modes  in  which  the 
Eternal  Energy  expresses  itself  owing  to  our  being  condi- 


226         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

tioned  by  that  which  is  not  ourselves.  Thus,  seeing  our 
human  necessity  to  give  some  form  to  our  conceptions, 
and  our  human  inability  to  find  any  form  higher  than 
the  highest  within  ourselves,  we  may  even  allow  our- 
selves to  carry  the  ideas  of  personality  and  consciousness 
with  us  in  our  thought  of  the  ultimate  Reality,  if  we  bear 
ever  in  mind  the  one  supremely  important  fact  that  our 
language  does  not  define  but  symbolize,  and  thus  avoid 
the  danger  of  passing,  as  it  is  so  easy  to  do,  from  symbol- 
ism, which  may  be  defensible,  to  definition,  which  can 
lead  to  nothing  but  the  confusion  of  empty  dogmatism, 
and  the  ignorance  which  mistakes  itself  for  knowledge. 
Does  this  seem,  after  all,  to  be  offering  little  in  place 
of  that  which  is  taken  away  ?  To  the  present  genera- 
tion this  must  needs  perhaps  be  so.  Men  move  with 
difficulty  from  concrete  image  to  abstract  statement. 
The  religious  progress  of  the  world  has  been  like  the 
slow  ascent  of  a  man  up  a  sheer  perpendicular  cliff — 
every  new  foothold  upward  has  been  carved  out  and 
graven  deep  with  infinite  labour  and  countless  tears. 
The  thought  a  little  in  advance  of  the  grasp  of  each  era 
has  to  that  era  necessarily  seemed  chilling  and  repulsive 
— it  has  lacked  that  warm  glow  which  is  only  possible  to 
ideas  long  steeped  in  the  emotions.  No  wonder,  then, 
that  when  his  anthropomorphic  error  had  been  proved 
to  him,  the  old  monk  Serapion  should  have  cried  aloud 
in  all  the  agony  of  his  despair,  "You  have  robbed  me 
of  my  God!"  No  wonder  that  in  the  hour  of  un- 
speakable craving  Luther's  wife  should  have  exclaimed 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        227 

against  the  coldness  and  hardness  of  her  new  creed. 
This  must  needs  be  the  cry  of  many  in  every  period 
of  transition  from  lower  to  higher  thought  in  the  fu- 
ture, as  it  has  already  been  the  cry  of  many  during 
every  such  crisis  in  the  past.  We  may  intellectually  seize 
and  appropriate  those  vast  cosmical  ideas  which  the 
wider  knowledge  of  our  time  is  yielding  us  in  place  of 
the  simpler  and  cruder  imaginings  of  the  past ;  we  may 
even  realize  that  these  new  ideas  are  infinitely  more 
impressive,  more  awe-inspiring,  more  truly  religious 
than  any  that  have  been  possible  to  mankind  hitherto ; 
but  until  these  ideas  can  grow  sacred  to  us  through 
habit  and  association,  until  they  can  sink  down  into  our 
feelings  and  dwell  there,  and  become  saturated  with  the 
finer  atmosphere  of  our  thought,  they  will  be  little  to 
us  but  the  abstractions  of  philosophy.  That  the  mass 
of  men  will  get  far  forward  in  the  difficult  task  of  thus 
incorporating  them  and  making  them  their  own,  in  our 
time,  or  for  many  generations  to  come,  can  hardly  be 
supposed.  But  that  adjustment  of  emotion  to  knowl- 
edge, which  has  already  performed  such  wonders  for  our 
race  in  the  past,  will  in  the  future  vitalize  these  new 
and  now  strange  concepts  of  our  philosophy  surely  and 
perhaps  more  rapidly  than  some  of  us  are  apt  to  im- 
agine. 

"  The  common  problem — yours,  mine,  every  one's — 
Is  not  to  fancy  what  were  fair  in  life 
Provided  it  could  be,  but  finding  first 
What  may  be,  then  find  how  to  make  it  fair 
Up  to  one's  means — a  very  different  thing." 


228         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

So  writes  Browning  in  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology. 
And  the  religious  problem  of  the  race  at  large  is  similar 
to  this.  The  emotions  of  each  generation,  adjusted  to 
the  average  knowledge  of  that  generation,  cannot  but 
receive  a  rude  shock  when  some  new  scientific  discovery 
sweeps  away  their  old  foundations,  and  thus  shatters 
the  ancient  bases  of  religious  faith.  At  such  a  crisis 
what  is  to  be  done?  Nothing,  but  to  accept  the  new 
truth  in  all  humility,  and,  in  the  firm  trust  that  the 
further  evolution  of  thought  will  presently  lead  to  the 
complete  reharmonization  of  knowledge  and  feeling, 
to  set  our  faces  resolutely  toward  the  light.  The 
true  religious  teacher  in  such  a  transitional  period  is, 
therefore,  not  the  man  who  enters  the  battle-field  of 
thought  to  fight  for  the  knowledge  of  yesterday  against 
the  knowledge  of  to-day ;  but  rather  he  who,  gifted 
with  prophetic  vision,  is  the  first  to  enter  sympathetic- 
ally into  all  that  science  reveals  concerning  the  order  of 
the  universe,  and  to  proclaim  its  religious  bearings  to 
a  world  that,  for  the  time  being,  it  has  blinded  "by 
excess  of  light."  Would  that  preachers  and  theologians 
could  only  thus  realize  their  privileges  and  their  respon- 
sibilities, and  from  the  history  of  the  many  epochs  of 
dire  struggle  and  confusion  through  which,  amid  dark- 
ness and  despair,  men  have  in  the  long  ago  of  the  past 
been  carried  forward,  as  on  a  tidal  wave,  to  higher  levels 
of  thought  and  feeling,  could  but  catch  the  inspiration 
of  a  larger  faith  in  what  the  future  holds  in  store ! 
Meanwhile,  it  is  to  the  great  poets  particularly  that  we 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        229 

have  to  look  for  help.  In  the  following  magnificent 
lines  of  Wordsworth,  for  example,  we  may  perhaps  read 
the  promise  of  a  near  and  complete  translation  of  the 
religious  ideas  which  we  have  been  here  trying  to  in- 
terpret, out  of  the  language  of  science  into  the  lan- 
guage of  the  feelings — the  proper  language,  be  it  ever 
remembered,  for  all  religious  thought : 

"  I  have  felt 

A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy  • 

Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things."  * 

Of  one  thing  at  least  we  may  rest  assured.  As  each 
larger  thought  of  the  universe  has  at  length  been  grown 
up  into,  and  from  the  vantage-point  then  reached  men 
have  looked  back  and  seen  their  older  conceptions  in 
all  their  limitations  and  crudity ;  so  will  this  largest 
thought  yet  brought  upon  the  horizon  of  our  possibility 

*  Lines  composed  a  few  miles  above  Tintern  Abbey,  1798. 
This  superb  production,  together  with  such  poems  as  Tennyson's 
Ancient  Sage  and  Akbar's  Dream — perhaps  the  finest  religious 
poems  of  our  time — should  be  carefully  compared  with  those 
passages  in  The  Task  in  which  Cowper  gave  expression  to  the 
mechanical  theism  of  Paley  and  his  school.  Such  a  comparison 
enables  us  to  appreciate  the  real  advance  that  we  have  made 
toward  an  emotional ization  of  the  new  thoughts  of  science  con- 
cerning the  universe  and  the  final  mystery  of  life. 
16 


230         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

be  also  emotionally  appropriated ;  and  so,  also,  when 
this  has  been  done,  will  men  realize  how  imperfect  were 
all  the  ideas  belonging  to  their  stage  of  anthropomor- 
phic theism.  Then  indeed  will  the  religious  emotions, 
harmonizing  with  a  wider,  truer,  and  deeper  knowledge 
of  the  Cosmos,  and  a  fuller  and  profounder  sense  of  the 
Eeality  of  which  the  universe  is  but  the  fleeting  mani- 
festation, as  much  transcend  the  religious  emotions  of 
our  own  day  as  do  these  the  religious  emotions  of  the 
fetich- worshipping  savage.  Nor  can  the  future  progress 
of  science  do  otherwise  than  strengthen  and  enlarge 
them.  As  knowledge  grows  "  from  more  to  more,"  so 
will  "  more  of  reverence  in  us  dwell,"  and  the  choral 
harmonies  of  knowledge  and  feeling  in  the  time  to 
come  will  be  richer  and  vaster  than  the  broken  music 
of  the  past.  For  with  every  fresh  exploration  through 
a  universe  which  is  literally  pulsating  with  life — a  uni- 
verse "  boundless  inward  in  the  atom,  boundless  out- 
ward through  the  whole  " — one  fact  will  ever  rise  into 
greater  distinctness,  and  fill  a  larger  place  in  the  minds 
of  men — the  fact  that,  amid  all  the  "  mysteries  which 
become  the  more  mysterious  the  more  they  are  thought 
about,  there  will  remain  the  absolute  certainty  "  that 
we  are  "  ever  in  presence  of  an  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Energy,  from  which  all  things  proceed." 


APPENDIX. 


CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST   OF   MR.    SPENCER'S    PRINCIPAL 
WRITINGS. 

[DEARLY  all  Mr.  Spencer's  magazine  articles,  and 
sundry  of  his  shorter  separate  publications,  are  con- 
tained in  the  library  edition  of  his  Essays,  Scientific, 
Political,  and  Speculative,  issued  by  Messrs.  D.  Apple- 
ton  &  Co.,  in  1892.  The  volume  numbers  added  to 
various  of  the  following  titles  refer  to  this  collection.] 

1842.     Letters  on  the  Proper  Sphere  of  Government. 

1350.    Social  Statics.    (Selections  from  this  work  were  published 

along  with  a  new  edition  of  The  Man  versus  The  State 

in  1892.) 

1852.  Theory  of  Population.    (Afterwards  developed  in  Part  VI 

of  The  Principles  of  Biology.) 
Use  and  Beauty  (vol.  ii). 
The  Development  Hypothesis  (vol.  i). 
The  Sources  of  Architectural  Types  (vol.  ii). 
Philosophy  of  Style  (vol.  ii). 
Gracefulness  (vol.  ii). 
Use  of  Anthropomorphism. 

1853.  Over-Legislation  (vol.  iii). 
Valuation  of  Evidence  (vol.  ii). 

The  Universal  Postulate.    (Afterwards  embodied  in  The 
Principles  of  Psychology,  Part  VII,  chapter  xi.) 


232         PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

1854.  Manners  and  Fashion  (vol.  iii). 
The  Genesis  of  Science  (vol.  ii). 

The  Art  of  Education.    (Now  forming  chapter  ii  of  the 

work  on  Education.) 

Railway  Morals  and  Railway  Policy  (vol.  iii). 
Personal  Beauty  (vol.  ii). 

1855.  Principles  of  Psychology  (first  edition). 

1857.  Progress,  its  Law  and  Cause  (vol.  i). 
Origin  and  Function  of  Music  (vol.  ii). 
Transcendental  Physiology  (vol.  i). 
Representative  Government  (vol.  iii). 

1858.  State  Tamperings  with  Money  and  Banks  (vol.  iii). 
Moral  Education.     (Now  forming  chapter  iii  of  the  work 

on  Education.) 

The  Nebular  Hypothesis  (vol.  i). 
Archetype  and  Homologies  of  the  Vertebrate  Skeleton. 

1859.  The  Laws  of  Organic  Form.    (Afterwards  developed  in 

Part  IV  of  The  Principles  of  Biology.) 

Physical  Education.  (Now  forming  chapter  iv  of  the  work 
on  Education.) 

What  Knowledge  is  of  most  Worth  f  (Now  forming  chap- 
ter i  of  the  same  work.) 

Illogical  Geology  (vol.  i). 

The  Morals  of  Trade  (vol.  iii). 

1860.  Bain  on  the  Emotions  and  the  Will  (vol.  i). 
The  Social  Organism  (vol.  i). 

The  Physiology  of  Laughter  (vol.  ii). 
Parliamentary  Reform  (vol  iii). 
Prison  Ethics  (vol.  iii). 

1861.  Education,  Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Physical. 

1862.  First  Principles. 

On  Laws  in  General  and  the  Order  of  their  Discovery 
(vol.  ii).    (A  chapter  from  the  first  edition  of  First 
Principles,      omitted    from     the     reorganized     edi- 
tion.) 
1864.    What  is  Electricity  ?  (vol.  ii). 

Classification  of  the  Sciences  (vol.  ii). 

Reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comte 
(vol.  ii).  (First  published  as  an  appendix  to  the  just- 
named  article.) 


APPENDIX.  233 

1865.    The  Collective  Wisdom  (vol.  iii). 

Political  Fetichism  (vol.  iii). 

Mill  vs.  Hamilton— The  Test  of  Truth  (vol.  ii). 
1867.     First  Principles  (remodelled). 

Principles  of  Biology  (two  volumes). 

1870.  Origin  of  Animal  Worship  (vol.  i). 

1871.  Specialized  Administration  (vol.  iii). 
Morals  and  Moral  Sentiments  (vol.  i). 

1872.  Principles  of  Psychology  (enlarged  edition,  two  volumes). 
Mr.  Martineau  on  Evolution  (vol.  i). 

1873.  The  Study  of  Sociology.    (International  Scientific  Series.) 
Replies  to  Criticisms  (vol.  ii).    (Mainly  on  the  doctrines  of 

First  Principles.) 

1875.  Note  to  Prof.  Cairns's  Critique  on  the  Study  of  Sociology 

(Fortnightly  Review,  February). 

1876.  Comparative  Psychology  of  Man  (vol.  i). 

1877.  Principles  of  Sociology  (vol.  i). 

A  Short  Rejoinder  [to  J.  F.  McLennan]  (Fortnightly  Re- 
view, June). 
1879.     Ceremonial  Institutions.    (Part  IV  of  The  Principles  of 

Sociology.) 
The  Data  of  Ethics.    (Part,  I  of  The  Principles  of  Ethics.) 

1881.  Prof.  Green's  Explanations  (vol.  ii).    (Replying  to  strictures 

on  The  Principles  of  Psychology.) 

1882.  Political  Institutions.    (Part  V  of  The  Principles  of  So- 

ciology.) 

The  Americans  :  A  Conversation  and  a  Speech  (vol.  iii). 
Prof.  Gold  win  Smith  as  a  Critic  (Contemporary  Review, 

June). 

1884.  The  Man  versus  The  State. 

Retrogressive  Religion  (Nineteenth  Century,  July). 
Last  Words  about  Agnosticism  and  the  Religion  of  Hu- 
manity (Nineteenth  Century,  November). 

1885.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions.     (Part  V  of  The  Principles  of 

Sociology.) 

A  Rejoinder  to  M.  de  Laveleye  (Contemporary  Review, 
April). 

1886.  The  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution  (vol.  i). 
1888.    The  Ethics  of  Kant  (vol.  iii). 

1890.    Absolute  Political  Ethics  (vol.  iii). 


234-    PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

1891.  From  Freedom  to  Bondage  (vol.  iii).    (First  published  as 

an  introduction  to  a  collection  of  antisocialistic  essays 
entitled  A  Plea  for  Liberty.) 
Justice.    (Part  IV  of  The  Principles  of  Ethics.) 

1892.  The  Inductions  of  Ethics— The  Ethics  of  Individual  Life. 

(Parts  II  and  III  of  The  Principles  of  Ethics.) 

1893.  The  Inadequacy  of  Natural  Selection. 

Negative  Beneficence — Positive  Beneficence.    (Parts  V  and 

VI  of  The  Principles  of  Ethics.) 
A  Rejoinder  to  Prof.  Weismann. 

To  the  above  list  have  to  be  added  the  eight  parts  of 
the  Descriptive  Sociology,  a  cyclopaedia  of  social  facts, 
collected  arranged,  and  published  under  Mr.  Spencer's 
supervision.  With  the  issue  of  the  eighth  division,  Mr. 
Spencer  announced  that,  owing  to  the  deficient  public 
response,  the  enterprise  would  have  to  be  abandoned. 
The  published  divisions  are  as  follows : 

I.  English. 
II.  Ancient  American  Races. 

III.  Lowest  Races. 

IV.  African  Races. 
V.  Asiatic  Races. 

VI.  American  Races. 
VII.  Hebrews  and  Phrenicians. 
VIII.  French. 


THE   END. 


r 


D.   APPLETON  &   CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

SYNTHETIC  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HER- 
BERT SPENCER.  In  nine  volumes.  I2mo.  Cloth,  $2.00 
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(i.)  FIRST  PRINCIPLES. 

I.  The  Unknowable.  II.  Laws  of  the  Knowable. 

(2.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  BIOLOGY.    Vol.  I. 

I   The  Data  of  Biology.  II.  The  Inductions  of  Biology. 

III.  The  Evolution  of  Life. 
(3.)  THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  BIOLOGY.      Vol.  II. 

IV.  Morphological  Development.  V.  Physiological  Development. 

VI.  Laws  of  Multiplication. 
(4.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.     Vol.  I. 

I.  The  Data  of  Psychology.  III.  General  Synthesis. 

II.  The  Inductions  of  Psychology.  IV.  Special  Synthesis. 

V.  Physical  Synthesis. 
(5.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.     Vol.  II. 

VI.  Special  Analysis.  VIII.  Congruities. 

VII.  General  Analysis.  IX.  Corollaries. 

(6.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY.     Vol.  I. 

I.  The  Data  of  Sociology.  II.  The  Inductions  of  Sociology. 

III.  The  Domestic  Relations. 
(7.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY.     Vol.  II. 

IV.  Ceremonial  Institutions.  V.  Political  Institutions. 

VI.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions. 

(8.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY.    Vol.  III. 

*        *        *        * 

(9.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  ETHICS.     Vol.  I. 

I.  The  Data  of  Ethics.  II.  The  Inductions  of  Ethics. 

III.  The  Ethics  of  Individual  Life. 

(10.)  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  ETHICS.     Vol.  II. 

IV.  The  Ethics  of  Social  Life:   Justice. 

V.  The  Ethics  of  Social  Life :    Negative  Beneficence. 

VI.  The  Ethics  of  Social  Life:    Positive  Beneficence. 

J~\ESCRIPTIVE    SOCIOLOGY.      A    Cyclopedia    of 

J-^   Social  Facts.     Representing  the  Constitution   of   Every  Type 

and  Grade  of  Human  Society,  Past  and  Present,  Stationary  and 

Progressive.    By  HERBERT  SPENCER.    Eight  Nos.,  Royal  Folio. 

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NEW   EDITION   OF    SPENCER'S   ESSAYS. 


Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative.  By 
HKRBERT  SPENCER.  A  new  edition,  uniform  with  Mr.  Spencer's 
other  works,  including  Seven  New  Essays.  Three  volumes, 
I2mo,  1,460  pages,  with  full  Subject-Index  of  twenty-four  pages. 
Cloth,  $6.00, 

CONTENTS   OF  VOLUME   I. 

The  Development  Hypothesis.  The  Social  Organism. 

Progress  :  its  Law  and  Cause.  The  Origin  of  Animal  Worship. 

Transcendental  Physiology.  Morals  and  Moral  Sentiments, 

The  Nebular  Hypothesis.  The  Comparative  Psychology  of  Man. 

Illogical  Geology.  Mr.  Martineau  on  Evolution. 

Bain  on  the  Emotions  and  the  Will.    The  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution.* 

CONTENTS   OF   VOLUME   II. 

The  Genesis  of  Science.  Replies  to  Criticisms. 

The  Classification  of  the  Sciences.  Prof.  Green's  Explanations. 

Reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  Phi-       The  Philosophy  of  Style,  t 

losophy  of  M.  Comte.  Use  and  Beauty. 

On  Laws  in  General,  and  the  Order        The  Sources  of  Architectural  Types 

of  their  Discovery.  Gracefulness. 

The  Valuation  of  Evidence.  Personal  Beauty. 

What  is  Electricity  ?  The  Origin  and  Function  of  Music. 

Mill  versus  Hamilton  —  The  Test  of        The  Physiology  of  Laughter. 

Truth. 

CONTENTS   OF  VOLUME   IIL 

Manners  and  Fashion.  State-Tampering   with   Money  and 
Railway   Morals  and    Railway  Banks 

Policy.  Parliamentary  Reform  :  the  Dangers 
The  Morals  of  Trade.  and  the  Safeguards. 

Prison-Ethics.  "  The  Collective  Wisdom." 

The  Ethics  of  Kant.  Political  Fetichism. 

Absolute  Political  Ethics.  Specialized  Administration. 

Over-Legislation.  From  Freedom  to  Bondage. 

Representative   Government  —  The  Americans.! 

What  is  it  good  for  ?  Index. 

*  Also  published  separately.  lamo.  Cloth,  75  cents. 
t  Also  published  separately.  i2mo.  Cloth,  50  cents. 
\  Also  published  separately.  I2mo.  Paper,  10  cents. 


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MISCELLANEOUS   WORKS   OF   HERBERT   SPENCER. 

O OCTAL  STATICS.      New  and  revised   edition,  in- 
*^-J      eluding  "  The  Man  versus  The  State,"   a   series  of  essays  on 
political    tendencies    heretofore    published    separately.      I2mo. 
420  pages.     Cloth,  $2.00. 

C  'NTF.NTS. — Happiness  as  an  Immediate  Aim. — Unguided  Expediency. — The 
Moral  Sense  Doctrine. — What  is  Morality  ? — The  Evanescence  [?  Diminution]  of  Evil. 
--Greatest  Happiness  must  be  sought  indirectly. — Derivation  of  a  First  Principle. — 
Secondary  Derivation  of  a  First  Principle. — First  Principle. — Application  of  the  First 
Principle. — The  Right  of  Property. — Socialism. — The  Right  of  Property  in  Ideas. — 
The  Rights  of  Women.— The  Rights  of  Children.— Political  Rights.— The  Constitution 
of  the  State. — The  Duty  of  the  State. — The  Limit  of  State-Duty. — The  Regulation  of 
Commerce. — Religious  Establishments. — Poor- Laws. — National  Education. — Govern- 
ment Colonization. — Sanitary  Supervision. — Currency,  Postal  Arrangements,  etc. — 
General  Considerations. — The  New  Toryism. — The  Coming  Slavery. — The  Sins  of 
Legislators. — The  Great  Political  Superstition. 

"  Mr.  Spencer  has  thoroughly  studied  the  issues  which  are  behind  the  social  and 
political  life  of  our  own  time,  not  exactly  those  issues  which  are  discussed  in  Parliament 
or  in  Congress,  but  the  principles  of  all  modern  government,  which  are  slowly  chang- 
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EDUCATION  FROM  A  NATIONAL  STAND- 

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gradual  enlightenment  of  the  American  people.  When  Mr.  Fiske  reminds  us  that 
the  discovery  and  propagation  of  truth  are  functions  seldom  united  in  one  person,  and 
that  science,  like  religion,  must  have  its  apostles,  he  speaks  as  one  having  experience 
and  authority  ;  and  no  one  will  dispute  his  competence  to  define  and  applaud  the 
services  which  his  friend  rendered  in  the  capacity  of  a  breaker  of  the  bread  of  science 
to  the  multitude." — New  York  Sun. 

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was  the  best  thing  that  could  be  made.  Prof.  Youmans  has  done  more  for  the  dis- 
semination of  scientific  information,  and  the  cultivation  of  a  taste  for  such  knowledge, 
than  any  other  American  of  his  day." —  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

"  We  shall  not  be  misunderstood  as  agreeing  with  all  the  views  recorded  here  by 
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say  that  we  have  read  the  book  with  great  interest,  and  are  thankful  that  one  who 
truly  and  unselfishly  labored  in  the  cause  of  popular  science  has  so  worthy  a  memo- 
rial."— New  York  Observer. 

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reveals  at  every  moment  and  in  every  act  of  his  life;  and  Mr.  Fiske  has  written  a  biog- 
raphy which  is  tender  and  true,  and  rich  and  strong.  To  it  are  appended  some  of  his 
writings  which  have  a  fitting  place  here,  and  fully  illustrate  his  mental  gifts  and  con- 
victions."— Boston  Herald. 

"  Edward  Livingston  Youmans  was  a  remarkable  character,  and  the  world  could 
ill  afford  to  lack  a  history  of  his  life.  Fortunately,  the  best  biographer  possible  has 
undertaken  to  write  that  history,  and  all  thoughtful  readers  may  rejoice  thereat ;  for 
John  Fiske  came  to  this  task  well  fitted  in  every  way  by  his  intimate  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  Mr.  Youmans,  extending  through  many  years." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

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title,  and  one  of  whose  closest  intimates  he  was.  The  volume  is  a  good  example  of 
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